Determination of Dark Matter Halo Mass from Dynamics of Satellite
  Galaxies
  We show that the mass of a dark matter halo can be inferred from the
dynamical status of its satellite galaxies. Using 9 dark-matter simulations of
halos like the Milky Way (MW), we find that the present-day substructures in
each halo follow a characteristic distribution in the phase space of orbital
binding energy and angular momentum, and that this distribution is similar from
halo to halo but has an intrinsic dependence on the halo formation history. We
construct this distribution directly from the simulations for a specific halo
and extend the result to halos of similar formation history but different
masses by scaling. The mass of an observed halo can then be estimated by
maximizing the likelihood in comparing the measured kinematic parameters of its
satellite galaxies with these distributions. We test the validity and accuracy
of this method with mock samples taken from the simulations. Using the
positions, radial velocities, and proper motions of 9 tracers and assuming
observational uncertainties comparable to those of MW satellite galaxies, we
find that the halo mass can be recovered to within $\sim$40%. The accuracy can
be improved to within $\sim$25% if 30 tracers are used. However, the dependence
of the phase-space distribution on the halo formation history sets a minimum
uncertainty of $\sim$20% that cannot be reduced by using more tracers. We
believe that this minimum uncertainty also applies to any mass determination
for a halo when the phase space information of other kinematic tracers is used.
