An Orbital Interpretation of Decreasing Galaxy Velocity Distance Relations in Systems Dominated by Giant Elliptical Galaxies
Abstract
The persistence of approximately flat rotation curves observed in many galaxies, is commonly interpreted as evidence for extended dark matter halos or as an indication of modified gravitational laws at low accelerations. In this work, we investigate an alternative orbital framework for the large scale kinematics of galaxy systems dominated by giant elliptical galaxies. We propose that selected non active companion galaxies form gravitationally bound orbital systems around a dominant central elliptical galaxy, conceptually analogous to the Solar System Using galaxy group catalogs together with data from the NASA IPAC Extragalactic Database, we analyze three independent systems centered on M87, M60, and NGC 1399. Candidate companions are selected according to common observational and dynamical criteria, including their location within the adopted search volume, approximate spatial coplanarity, and consistency of the effective gravitational parameter (Geff). For the three systems, the resulting velocity distance relations exhibit clear decreasing trends with increasing distance from the central elliptical galaxy, qualitatively consistent with Keplerian like orbital dynamics.
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BibTeX
@misc{melati2026orbital,
title = {{An Orbital Interpretation of Decreasing Galaxy Velocity Distance Relations in Systems Dominated by Giant Elliptical Galaxies}},
author = {Rabia Melati and Takia Larbaoui and Mohammed Ridha Benzidane and Mourad Lounis},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.21487},
eprint = {2609.21487},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21487},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - An Orbital Interpretation of Decreasing Galaxy Velocity Distance Relations in Systems Dominated by Giant Elliptical Galaxies
AU - Rabia Melati
AU - Takia Larbaoui
AU - Mohammed Ridha Benzidane
AU - Mourad Lounis
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.21487
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21487
AB - The persistence of approximately flat rotation curves observed in many galaxies, is commonly interpreted as evidence for extended dark matter halos or as an indication of modified gravitational laws at low accelerations. In this work, we investigate an alternative orbital framework for the large scale kinematics of galaxy systems dominated by giant elliptical galaxies. We propose that selected non active companion galaxies form gravitationally bound orbital systems around a dominant central elliptical galaxy, conceptually analogous to the Solar System Using galaxy group catalogs together with data from the NASA IPAC Extragalactic Database, we analyze three independent systems centered on M87, M60, and NGC 1399. Candidate companions are selected according to common observational and dynamical criteria, including their location within the adopted search volume, approximate spatial coplanarity, and consistency of the effective gravitational parameter (Geff). For the three systems, the resulting velocity distance relations exhibit clear decreasing trends with increasing distance from the central elliptical galaxy, qualitatively consistent with Keplerian like orbital dynamics.
ER -