Isolated dwarf galaxies: from cuspy to flat dark matter density profiles and metalicity gradients

¹ Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: spasetto@ari.uni-heidelberg.de
² Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany
³ National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Datun Lu 20A, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100012, PR China
⁴ Main Astronomical Observatory (MAO), National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), Akademika Zabolotnoho 27, 03680 Kyiv, Ukraine
⁵ Kavli Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing, PR China
⁶ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

Received: 3 September 2009
Accepted: 28 January 2010

Abstract

The chemodynamical evolution of spherical multi-component self-gravitating models for isolated dwarf galaxies is studied. We compared their evolution with and without feedback effects from star formation processes. We found that initially cuspy dark matter profiles flatten with time without any special tuning conditions as a result of star formation. Thus the seemingly flattened profiles found in many dwarfs do not contradict the cuspy profiles predicted by cosmological models. We also calculated the chemical evolution of stars and gas, to permit comparisons with observational data.