Are Dwarf Galaxies Dominated by Dark Matter?
  Mass models for a sample of 18 late-type dwarf and low surface brightness
galaxies show that in almost all cases the contribution of the stellar disks to
the rotation curves can be scaled to explain most of the observed rotation
curves out to two or three disk scale lengths. The concept of a maximum disk,
therefore, appears to work as well for these late-type dwarf galaxies as it
does for spiral galaxies. Some of the mass-to-light ratios required in our
maximum disk fits are high, however, up to about 15 in the R-band, with the
highest values occurring in galaxies with the lowest surface brightnesses.
Equally well-fitting mass models can be obtained with much lower mass-to-light
ratios. Regardless of the actual contribution of the stellar disk, the fact
that the maximum disk can explain the inner parts of the observed rotation
curves highlights the similarity in shapes of the rotation curve of the stellar
disk and the observed rotation curve. This similarity implies that the
distribution of the total mass density is closely coupled to that of the
luminous mass density in the inner parts of late-type dwarf galaxies.
