The shape of rotation curves: models vs. observations

Abstract

We discuss the shape and decomposition of rotation curves (RCs) of galaxies formed within growing cold dark matter halos. The outer RC shape correlates mainly with the surface brightness (SB), the luminous mass fraction, fd, and the bulge fraction. In order the shapes of RC depend significantly on luminosity, fd should be a strong function of mass (feedback). For the preferred values of fd (\lesssim 0.03), the high SB models can be maximum disks only when the halos have a shallow core. The low SB models are sub-maximum disks. The residuals of the baryonic Tully-Fisher (TF) and disk mass-radius relations show a clear anti-correlation among them, but when one passes to the TF and luminosity-radius relations, the anti-correlation almost disappears. Therefore, the observed lack of correlation among the residuals of the last two relations should not be interpreted as an evidence of sub-maximal disks.