Snapshots of Isolated Elliptical Galaxies

The properties of dark matter halos on galactic scales remain a largely untappedresource for cosmological studies. Xray observations offer potentially the mostpromising means to study dark matter in isolated elliptical galaxies, but thereis presently a lack of known suitable candidates for study. Therefore, wepropose a snapshot survey of 9 systems to identify isolated elliptical galaxieswith Xray properties similar to the best examples currently known. Deepfollowup exposures with XMM and Chandra of promising targets will then besought for detailed analysis of their dark matter distributions. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]