scholarly journals Probing non-spherical dark halos in the Galactic dwarf satellites

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S298) ◽  
pp. 411-411
Author(s):  
Kohei Hayashi ◽  
Masashi Chiba

AbstractWe construct axisymmetric mass models for dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in the Milky Way to obtain realistic limits on the non-spherical structure of their dark halos. This is motivated by the fact that the observed luminous parts of the dSphs are actually non-spherical and cold dark matter models predict non-spherical virialized dark halos on sub-galactic scales. Applying these models to line-of-sight velocity dispersion profiles along three position angles in six Galactic satellites, we find that the best fitting cases for most of the dSphs yield not spherical but oblate and flattened dark halos. We also find that the mass of the dSphs enclosed within inner 300 pc varies depending on their total luminosities, contrary to the conclusion of previous spherical models. This suggests the importance of considering non-spherical shapes of dark halos in dSph mass models.

2019 ◽  
Vol 485 (2) ◽  
pp. 2861-2876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin V Church ◽  
Philip Mocz ◽  
Jeremiah P Ostriker

ABSTRACT Although highly successful on cosmological scales, cold dark matter (CDM) models predict unobserved overdense ‘cusps’ in dwarf galaxies and overestimate their formation rate. We consider an ultralight axion-like scalar boson which promises to reduce these observational discrepancies at galactic scales. The model, known as fuzzy dark matter (FDM), avoids cusps, suppresses small-scale power, and delays galaxy formation via macroscopic quantum pressure. We compare the substructure and density fluctuations of galactic dark matter haloes comprised of ultralight axions to conventional CDM results. Besides self-gravitating subhaloes, FDM includes non-virialized overdense wavelets formed by quantum interference patterns, which are an efficient source of heating to galactic discs. We find that, in the solar neighbourhood, wavelet heating is sufficient to give the oldest disc stars a velocity dispersion of ${\sim } {30}{\, \mathrm{km\, s}^{-1}}$ within a Hubble time if energy is not lost from the disc, the velocity dispersion increasing with stellar age as σD ∝ t0.4 in agreement with observations. Furthermore, we calculate the radius-dependent velocity dispersion and corresponding scaleheight caused by the heating of this dynamical substructure in both CDM and FDM with the determination that these effects will produce a flaring that terminates the Milky Way disc at $15\!-\!20{\, \mathrm{kpc}}$. Although the source of thickened discs is not known, the heating due to perturbations caused by dark substructure cannot exceed the total disc velocity dispersion. Therefore, this work provides a lower bound on the FDM particle mass of ma > 0.6 × 10−22 eV. Furthermore, FDM wavelets with this particle mass should be considered a viable mechanism for producing the observed disc thickening with time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 484 (4) ◽  
pp. 5453-5467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M Callingham ◽  
Marius Cautun ◽  
Alis J Deason ◽  
Carlos S Frenk ◽  
Wenting Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract We present and apply a method to infer the mass of the Milky Way (MW) by comparing the dynamics of MW satellites to those of model satellites in the eagle cosmological hydrodynamics simulations. A distribution function (DF) for galactic satellites is constructed from eagle using specific angular momentum and specific energy, which are scaled so as to be independent of host halo mass. In this two-dimensional space, the orbital properties of satellite galaxies vary according to the host halo mass. The halo mass can be inferred by calculating the likelihood that the observed satellite population is drawn from this DF. Our method is robustly calibrated on mock eagle systems. We validate it by applying it to the completely independent suite of 30 auriga high-resolution simulations of MW-like galaxies: the method accurately recovers their true mass and associated uncertainties. We then apply it to 10 classical satellites of the MW with six-dimensional phase-space measurements, including updated proper motions from the Gaia satellite. The mass of the MW is estimated to be $M_{200}^{\rm {MW}}=1.17_{-0.15}^{+0.21}\times 10^{12}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ (68 per cent confidence limits). We combine our total mass estimate with recent mass estimates in the inner regions of the Galaxy to infer an inner dark matter (DM) mass fraction $M^\rm {DM}(\lt 20~\rm {kpc})/M^\rm {DM}_{200}=0.12$, which is typical of ${\sim }10^{12}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ lambda cold dark matter haloes in hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations. Assuming a Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) profile, this is equivalent to a halo concentration of $c_{200}^{\rm {MW}}=10.9^{+2.6}_{-2.0}$.


Author(s):  
Kun Ting Eddie Chua ◽  
Karia Dibert ◽  
Mark Vogelsberger ◽  
Jesús Zavala

Abstract We study the effects of inelastic dark matter self-interactions on the internal structure of a simulated Milky Way (MW)-size halo. Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is an alternative to collisionless cold dark matter (CDM) which offers a unique solution to the problems encountered with CDM on sub-galactic scales. Although previous SIDM simulations have mainly considered elastic collisions, theoretical considerations motivate the existence of multi-state dark matter where transitions from the excited to the ground state are exothermic. In this work, we consider a self-interacting, two-state dark matter model with inelastic collisions, implemented in the Arepo code. We find that energy injection from inelastic self-interactions reduces the central density of the MW halo in a shorter timescale relative to the elastic scale, resulting in a larger core size. Inelastic collisions also isotropize the orbits, resulting in an overall lower velocity anisotropy for the inelastic MW halo. In the inner halo, the inelastic SIDM case (minor-to-major axis ratio s ≡ c/a ≈ 0.65) is more spherical than the CDM (s ≈ 0.4), but less spherical than the elastic SIDM case (s ≈ 0.75). The speed distribution f(v) of dark matter particles at the location of the Sun in the inelastic SIDM model shows a significant departure from the CDM model, with f(v) falling more steeply at high speeds. In addition, the velocity kicks imparted during inelastic collisions produce unbound high-speed particles with velocities up to 500 km s−1 throughout the halo. This implies that inelastic SIDM can potentially leave distinct signatures in direct detection experiments, relative to elastic SIDM and CDM.


2010 ◽  
Vol 408 (4) ◽  
pp. 2364-2372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis E. Strigari ◽  
Carlos S. Frenk ◽  
Simon D. M. White

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S254) ◽  
pp. 179-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary F. G. Wyse

AbstractI discuss how the chemical abundance distributions, kinematics and age distributions of stars in the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy can be used to decipher the merger history of the Milky Way, a typical large galaxy. The observational evidence points to a rather quiescent past merging history, unusual in the context of the ‘consensus’ cold-dark-matter cosmology favoured from observations of structure on scales larger than individual galaxies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 808 (1) ◽  
pp. L17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Feng ◽  
Tiziana Di Matteo ◽  
Rupert Croft ◽  
Ananth Tenneti ◽  
Simeon Bird ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 486 (4) ◽  
pp. 4545-4568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E Fielder ◽  
Yao-Yuan Mao ◽  
Jeffrey A Newman ◽  
Andrew R Zentner ◽  
Timothy C Licquia

ABSTRACT On small scales there have been a number of claims of discrepancies between the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model and observations. The ‘missing satellites problem’ infamously describes the overabundance of subhaloes from CDM simulations compared to the number of satellites observed in the Milky Way. A variety of solutions to this discrepancy have been proposed; however, the impact of the specific properties of the Milky Way halo relative to the typical halo of its mass has yet to be explored. Motivated by recent studies that identified ways in which the Milky Way is atypical, we investigate how the properties of dark matter haloes with mass comparable to our Galaxy’s – including concentration, spin, shape, and scale factor of the last major merger – correlate with the subhalo abundance. Using zoom-in simulations of Milky Way-like haloes, we build two models of subhalo abundance as functions of host halo properties. From these models we conclude that the Milky Way most likely has fewer subhaloes than the average halo of the same mass. We expect up to 30 per cent fewer subhaloes with low maximum rotation velocities ($V_{\rm max}^{\rm sat} \sim 10$ km s−1) at the 68 per cent confidence level and up to 52 per cent fewer than average subhaloes with high rotation velocities ($V_{\rm max}^{\rm sat} \gtrsim 30$ km s−1, comparable to the Magellanic Clouds) than would be expected for a typical halo of the Milky Way’s mass. Concentration is the most informative single parameter for predicting subhalo abundance. Our results imply that models tuned to explain the missing satellites problem assuming typical subhalo abundances for our Galaxy may be overcorrecting.


2003 ◽  
Vol 208 ◽  
pp. 391-392
Author(s):  
Andreea S. Font ◽  
Julio F. Navarro

We investigate recent suggestions that substructure in cold dark matter (CDM) halos has potentially destructive effects on galactic disks. N-body simulations of disk/bulge models of the Milky Way, embedded in a dark matter halo with substructure similar to that found in cosmological simulations, show that tides from substructure halos play only a minor role in the dynamical heating of the stellar disk. This suggests that substructure might not preclude CDM halos from being acceptable hosts of thin stellar disks.


Galaxies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Stref ◽  
Thomas Lacroix ◽  
Julien Lavalle

Dark-matter subhalos, predicted in large numbers in the cold-dark-matter scenario, should have an impact on dark-matter-particle searches. Recent results show that tidal disruption of these objects in computer simulations is overefficient due to numerical artifacts and resolution effects. Accounting for these results, we re-estimated the subhalo abundance in the Milky Way using semianalytical techniques. In particular, we showed that the boost factor for gamma rays and cosmic-ray antiprotons is increased by roughly a factor of two.


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