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Context. As the nearest accessible massive early-type galaxy, NGC 5128 presents an exceptional opportunity to measure dark matter halo parameters for a representative elliptical galaxy. Aims. Here we take advantage of rich new observational datasets of large-radius tracers to perform dynamical modeling of NGC 5128 Methods. We used a discrete axisymmetric anisotropic Jeans approach with a total tracer population of nearly 1800 planetary nebulae, globular clusters, and dwarf satellite galaxies extending to a projected distance of ∼250 kpc from the galaxy center to model the dynamics of NGC 5128. Results. We find that a standard Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) halo provides an excellent fit to nearly all the data, except for a subset of the planetary nebulae that appear to be out of virial equilibrium. The best-fit dark matter halo has a virial mass of Mvir = 4.4−1.4+2.4 × 1012 M⊙, and NGC 5128 appears to sit below the mean stellar mass–halo mass and globular cluster mass–halo mass relations, which both predict a halo virial mass closer to Mvir ∼ 1013 M⊙. The inferred NFW virial concentration is cvir = 5.6−1.6+2.4, which is nominally lower than cvir ∼ 9 predicted from published cvir–Mvir relations, but within the ∼30% scatter found in simulations. The best-fit dark matter halo constitutes only ∼10% of the total mass at one effective radius but ∼50% at five effective radii. The derived halo parameters are consistent within the uncertainties for models with differing tracer populations, anisotropies, and inclinations. Conclusions. Our analysis highlights the value of comprehensive dynamical modeling of nearby galaxies and the importance of using multiple tracers to allow cross-checks for model robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellar streams from globular clusters (GCs) offer constraints on the nature of dark matter and have been used to explore the dark matter halo structure and substructure of our Galaxy. Detection of GC streams in other galaxies would broaden this endeavor to a cosmological context, yet no such streams have been detected to date. To enable such exploration, we develop the Hough Stream Spotter (HSS), and apply it to the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) photometric data of resolved stars in M31's stellar halo. We first demonstrate that our code can re-discover known dwarf streams in M31. We then use the HSS to blindly identify 27 linear GC stream-like structures in the PAndAS data. For each HSS GC stream candidate, we investigate the morphologies of the streams and the colors and magnitudes of all stars in the candidate streams. We find that the five most significant detections show a stronger signal along the red giant branch in color–magnitude diagrams than spurious non-stream detections. Lastly, we demonstrate that the HSS will easily detect globular cluster streams in future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope data of nearby galaxies. This has the potential to open up a new discovery space for GC stream studies, GC stream gap searches, and for GC stream-based constraints on the nature of dark matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flattened axisymmetric galactic potentials are known to host minor orbit families surrounding orbits with commensurable frequencies. The behaviour of orbits that belong to these orbit families is fundamentally different than that of typical orbits with non-commensurable frequencies. We investigate the evolution of stellar streams on orbits near the boundaries between orbit families (separatrices) in a flattened axisymmetric potential. We demonstrate that the separatrix divides these streams into two groups of stars that belong to two different orbit families, and that as a result, these streams diffuse more rapidly than streams that evolve elsewhere in the potential. We utilize Hamiltonian perturbation theory to estimate both the time-scale of this effect and the likelihood of a stream evolving close enough to a separatrix to be affected by it. We analyse two prior reports of stream-fanning in simulations with triaxial potentials, and conclude that at least one of them is caused by separatrix divergence. These results lay the foundation for a method of mapping the orbit families of galactic potentials using the morphology of stellar streams. Comparing these predictions with the currently known distribution of streams in the Milky Way presents a new way of constraining the shape of our Galaxy's potential and distribution of dark matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several long, dynamically cold stellar streams have been observed around the Milky Way Galaxy, presumably formed from the tidal disruption of globular clusters. In integrable potentials - where all orbits are regular - tidal debris phase-mixes close to the orbit of the progenitor system. However, the Milky Way's dark matter halo is expected not to be fully integrable; an appreciable fraction of orbits will be chaotic. This paper examines the influence of chaos on the phase-space morphology of cold tidal streams. Streams even in weakly chaotic regions look very different from those in regular regions. We find that streams can be sensitive to chaos on a much shorter time-scale than any standard prediction (from the Lyapunov or frequency-diffusion times). For example, on a weakly chaotic orbit with a chaotic time-scale predicted to be >1000 orbital periods (>1000 Gyr), the resulting stellar stream is, after just a few 10's of orbits, substantially more diffuse than any formed on a nearby but regular orbit. We find that the enhanced diffusion of the stream stars can be understood by looking at the variance in orbital frequencies of orbit ensembles centred around the parent (progenitor) orbit. Our results suggest that long, cold streams around our Galaxy must exist only on regular (or very nearly regular) orbits; they potentially provide a map of the regular regions of the Milky Way potential. This suggests a promising new direction for the use of tidal streams to constrain the distribution of dark matter around our Galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an example where the morphology of a single stellar stream can be used to rule out a specific galactic potential form without the need for velocity information. We investigate the globular cluster Palomar 5 (Pal 5), which is tidally disrupting into a cold, thin stream mapped over 22 deg on the sky with a typical width of 0.7 deg. We generate models of this stream by fixing Pal 5's present-day position, distance, and radial velocity via observations, while allowing its proper motion to vary. In a spherical dark matter halo we easily find models that fit the observed morphology. However, no plausible Pal 5 model could be found in the triaxial potential of Law & Majewski, which has been proposed to explain the properties of the Sagittarius stream. In this case, the long, thin, and curved morphology of the Pal 5 stream alone can be used to rule out such a potential configuration. Pal 5-like streams in this potential are either too straight, missing the curvature of the observations, or show an unusual morphology which we dub stream-fanning: a signature sensitive to the triaxiality of a potential. We conclude that the mere existence of other thin tidal streams must provide broad constraints on the orientation and shape of the dark matter halo they inhabit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]