The Centaurus Group and the Outer Halo of NGC 5128: Are They Dynamically Connected?

NGC 5128, a giant elliptical galaxy only $\sim 4$ Mpc away, is the dominantmember of a galaxy group of over 80 probable members. The Centaurus groupprovides an excellent sample for a kinematic comparison between the halo of NGC5128 and its surrounding satellite galaxies. A new study, presented here, showsno kinematic difference in rotation amplitude, rotation axis, and velocitydispersion between the halo of NGC 5128, determined from over $\sim340$ of itsglobular clusters, and those of the Centaurus group as a whole. These resultssuggest NGC 5128 could be behaving in part as the inner component to the galaxygroup, and could have begun as a large initial seed galaxy, gradually built upby minor mergers and satellite accretions, consistent with simple cold darkmatter models. The mass and mass-to-light ratios in the B-band, corrected forprojection effects, are determined to be $(1.3\pm0.5) \times 10^{12}$M$_{\sun}$ and $52\pm22$ M$_{\sun}$/L$_{\sun}$ for NGC 5128 out to agalactocentric radius of 45 kpc, and $(9.2\pm3.0) \times 10^{12}$ M$_{\sun}$and $153\pm50$ M$_{\sun}$/L$_{\sun}$ for the Centaurus group, consistent withprevious studies.Comment: 14 pages, 3 tables, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in A