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Discoveries of extended rotation curves have suggested the presence of darkmatter in spiral galaxy haloes. It has led to many studies that estimated thegalaxy total mass, mostly by using the Navarro Frenk and White (NFW) densityprofile. We aim at verifying how the choice of the dark-matter profile mayaffect the predicted values of extrapolated total masses. We have consideredthe recent Milky Way (MW) rotation curve, firstly because of its unprecedentedaccuracy, and secondly because the Galactic disk is amongst the least affectedby past major mergers having fully reshaped the initial disk. We find that theuse of NFW profile (or its generalized form, gNFW) for calculating thedark-matter contribution to the MW rotation curve generates apparentlyinconsistent results, e.g., an increase of the baryonic mass leads to increaseof the dark matter mass. Furthermore we find that NFW and gNFW profile narrowthe total mass range, leading to a possible methodological bias particularlyagainst small MW masses. By using the Einasto profile that is more appropriateto represent cold dark matter haloes, we finally find that the Milky Wayslightly decreasing rotation curve favors total mass that can be as small as2.6 $\times 10^{11}$ $M_{\odot}$, disregarding any other dynamical tracersfurther out in the MW. It is inconsistent with values larger than 18 $\times10^{11}$ $M_{\odot}$ for any kind of CDM dark-matter halo profiles, under theassumption that stars and gas do not influence the predicted dark matterdistribution in the MW. This methodological paper encourages the use of theEinasto profile for characterizing rotation curves with the aim of evaluatingtheir total masses.

Which Milky Way masses are consistent with the slightly declining 5-25 kpc rotation curve?