scholarly journals Connecting the structure of dark matter haloes to the primordial power spectrum

2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (4) ◽  
pp. 4994-5013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun T Brown ◽  
Ian G McCarthy ◽  
Benedikt Diemer ◽  
Andreea S Font ◽  
Sam G Stafford ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT A large body of work based on collisionless cosmological N-body simulations going back over two decades has advanced the idea that collapsed dark matter (DM) haloes have simple and approximately universal forms for their mass density and pseudo-phase-space density (PPSD) distributions. However, a general consensus on the physical origin of these results has not yet been reached. In the present study, we explore to what extent the apparent universality of these forms holds when we vary the initial conditions (i.e. the primordial power spectrum of density fluctuations) away from the standard CMB-normalized case, but still within the context of lambda cold dark matter with a fixed expansion history. Using simulations that vary the initial amplitude and shape, we show that the structure of DM haloes retains a clear memory of the initial conditions. Specifically, increasing (lowering) the amplitude of fluctuations increases (decreases) the concentration of haloes and, if pushed far enough, the density profiles deviate strongly from the NFW form that is a good approximation for the CMB-normalized case. Although, an Einasto form works well. Rather than being universal, the slope of the PPSD (or pseudo-entropy) profile steepens (flattens) with increasing (decreasing) power spectrum amplitude and can exhibit a strong halo mass dependence. Our results therefore indicate that the previously identified universality of the structure of DM haloes is mostly a consequence of adopting a narrow range of (CMB-normalized) initial conditions for the simulations. Our new suite provides a useful test-bench against which physical models for the origin of halo structure can be validated.

1987 ◽  
Vol 117 ◽  
pp. 367-367
Author(s):  
Rosemary F. G. Wyse ◽  
Bernard J. T. Jones

We present a simple model for the formation of elliptical galaxies, based on a binary clustering hierarchy of dark matter, the chemical enrichment of the gas at each level being controlled by supernovae. The initial conditions for the non-linear phases of galaxy formation are set by the post-recombination power spectrum of density fluctuations. We investigate two models for this power spectrum - the first is a straightforward power law, |δk|2 ∝ kn, and the second is Peeble's analytic approximation to the emergent spectrum in a universe dominated by cold dark matter. The normalisation is chosen such that on some scale, say M ∼ 1012M⊙, the objects that condense out have properties - radius and velocity dispersion - resembling ‘typical’ galaxies. There is some ambiguity in this due to the poorly determined mass-to-light ratio of a typical elliptical galaxy — we look at two normalisations, σ1D ∼ 350kms−1 and σ1D ∼ 140kms−1. The choice determines which of Compton cooling or hydrogen cooling is more important during the galaxy formation period. The non-linear behaviour of the perturbations is treated by the homogeneous sphere approximation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (4) ◽  
pp. 5638-5645
Author(s):  
Gábor Rácz ◽  
István Szapudi ◽  
István Csabai ◽  
László Dobos

ABSTRACT The classical gravitational force on a torus is anisotropic and always lower than Newton’s 1/r2 law. We demonstrate the effects of periodicity in dark matter only N-body simulations of spherical collapse and standard Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) initial conditions. Periodic boundary conditions cause an overall negative and anisotropic bias in cosmological simulations of cosmic structure formation. The lower amplitude of power spectra of small periodic simulations is a consequence of the missing large-scale modes and the equally important smaller periodic forces. The effect is most significant when the largest mildly non-linear scales are comparable to the linear size of the simulation box, as often is the case for high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations. Spherical collapse morphs into a shape similar to an octahedron. The anisotropic growth distorts the large-scale ΛCDM dark matter structures. We introduce the direction-dependent power spectrum invariant under the octahedral group of the simulation volume and show that the results break spherical symmetry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 641 ◽  
pp. A10 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Y. Akrami ◽  
F. Arroja ◽  
M. Ashdown ◽  
J. Aumont ◽  
...  

We report on the implications for cosmic inflation of the 2018 release of the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy measurements. The results are fully consistent with those reported using the data from the two previous Planck cosmological releases, but have smaller uncertainties thanks to improvements in the characterization of polarization at low and high multipoles. Planck temperature, polarization, and lensing data determine the spectral index of scalar perturbations to be ns = 0.9649 ± 0.0042 at 68% CL. We find no evidence for a scale dependence of ns, either as a running or as a running of the running. The Universe is found to be consistent with spatial flatness with a precision of 0.4% at 95% CL by combining Planck with a compilation of baryon acoustic oscillation data. The Planck 95% CL upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r0.002 <  0.10, is further tightened by combining with the BICEP2/Keck Array BK15 data to obtain r0.002 <  0.056. In the framework of standard single-field inflationary models with Einstein gravity, these results imply that: (a) the predictions of slow-roll models with a concave potential, V″(ϕ) < 0, are increasingly favoured by the data; and (b) based on two different methods for reconstructing the inflaton potential, we find no evidence for dynamics beyond slow roll. Three different methods for the non-parametric reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum consistently confirm a pure power law in the range of comoving scales 0.005 Mpc−1 ≲ k ≲ 0.2 Mpc−1. A complementary analysis also finds no evidence for theoretically motivated parameterized features in the Planck power spectra. For the case of oscillatory features that are logarithmic or linear in k, this result is further strengthened by a new combined analysis including the Planck bispectrum data. The new Planck polarization data provide a stringent test of the adiabaticity of the initial conditions for the cosmological fluctuations. In correlated, mixed adiabatic and isocurvature models, the non-adiabatic contribution to the observed CMB temperature variance is constrained to 1.3%, 1.7%, and 1.7% at 95% CL for cold dark matter, neutrino density, and neutrino velocity, respectively. Planck power spectra plus lensing set constraints on the amplitude of compensated cold dark matter-baryon isocurvature perturbations that are consistent with current complementary measurements. The polarization data also provide improved constraints on inflationary models that predict a small statistically anisotropic quadupolar modulation of the primordial fluctuations. However, the polarization data do not support physical models for a scale-dependent dipolar modulation. All these findings support the key predictions of the standard single-field inflationary models, which will be further tested by future cosmological observations.


Theoretical and experimental arguments suggest that the mean mass density of our universe is close to the closure value and that most of the mass in the universe consists of weakly interacting non-baryonic particles. Among the plethora of candidates that have been proposed as the dark matter, the neutrino remains the only particle known to exist, even though the issue of a neutrino mass remains unresolved. It was shown several years ago that neutrinos alone cannot provide the dark matter because physical processes in the early universe would have wiped out primordial density fluctuations on the scale of galaxies and below. The idea that cosmic strings or textures may seed galaxy formation in a neutrino-dominated universe has not yet been demonstrated to be viable. On the other hand, a model in which the bulk of the dark matter is cold and neutrinos with a mass of ca . 10 eV provide a ca . 30% contribution can, in principle, overcome many of the objections against the standard cold dark matter cosmogony. Although subject to the usual ‘fine-tuning’ criticism, these mixed dark matter models represent the best cosmological argument in favour of a non-zero rest mass for the neutrino.


Author(s):  
Noam I. Libeskind ◽  
Arianna Di Cintio ◽  
Alexander Knebe ◽  
Gustavo Yepes ◽  
Stefan Gottlöber ◽  
...  

AbstractThe differences between cold dark matter (CDM) and warm dark matter (WDM) in the formation of a group of galaxies are examined by running two identical simulations, where in the WDM case the initial power spectrum has been altered to mimic a 1-keV dark matter particle. The CDM initial conditions were constrained to reproduce at z = 0 the correct local environment within which a ‘Local Group’ (LG) of galaxies may form. Two significant differences between the two simulations are found. While in the CDM case a group of galaxies that resembles the real LG forms, the WDM run fails to reproduce a viable LG, instead forming a diffuse group which is still expanding at z = 0. This is surprising since, due to the suppression of small-scale power in its power spectrum, WDM is naively expected to only affect the collapse of small haloes and not necessarily the dynamics on a scale of a group of galaxies. Furthermore, the concentration of baryons in halo centre is greater in CDM than in WDM and the properties of the discs differ.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (2) ◽  
pp. 2532-2542
Author(s):  
Linda Blot ◽  
Pier-Stefano Corasaniti ◽  
Yann Rasera ◽  
Shankar Agarwal

ABSTRACT Future galaxy surveys will provide accurate measurements of the matter power spectrum across an unprecedented range of scales and redshifts. The analysis of these data will require one to accurately model the imprint of non-linearities of the matter density field. In particular, these induce a non-Gaussian contribution to the data covariance that needs to be properly taken into account to realize unbiased cosmological parameter inference analyses. Here, we study the cosmological dependence of the matter power spectrum covariance using a dedicated suite of N-body simulations, the Dark Energy Universe Simulation–Parallel Universe Runs (DEUS-PUR) Cosmo. These consist of 512 realizations for 10 different cosmologies where we vary the matter density Ωm, the amplitude of density fluctuations σ8, the reduced Hubble parameter h, and a constant dark energy equation of state w by approximately $10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$. We use these data to evaluate the first and second derivatives of the power spectrum covariance with respect to a fiducial Λ-cold dark matter cosmology. We find that the variations can be as large as $150{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ depending on the scale, redshift, and model parameter considered. By performing a Fisher matrix analysis we explore the impact of different choices in modelling the cosmological dependence of the covariance. Our results suggest that fixing the covariance to a fiducial cosmology can significantly affect the recovered parameter errors and that modelling the cosmological dependence of the variance while keeping the correlation coefficient fixed can alleviate the impact of this effect.


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 &gt; 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.


Recent observational and theoretical results on galaxy clustering are reviewed. A major difficulty in relating observations to theory is that the former refer to luminous material whereas the latter is most directly concerned with the gravitationally dominant but invisible dark matter. The simple assumption that the distribution of galaxies generally follows that of the mass appears to conflict with evidence suggesting that galaxies of different kinds are clustered in different ways. If galaxies are indeed biased tracers of the mass, then dynamical estimates of the mean cosmic density, which give Ω « 0.2 may underestimate the global value of Ω. There are now several specific models for the behaviour of density fluctuations from very early times to the present epoch. The late phases of this evolution need to be followed by N -body techniques; simulations of scale-free universes and of universes dominated by various types of elementary particles are discussed. In the former case, the models evolve in a self-similar way; the resulting correlations have a steeper slope than that oberved for the galaxy distribution unless the primordial power spectral index n « 2. Universes dominated by light neutrinos acquire a large coherence length at early times. As a result, an early filamentary phase develops into a present day distribution that is more strongly clustered than observed galaxies and is dominated by a few clumps with masses larger than those of any known object. If the dark matter consists of ‘cold’ particles such as photinos or axions, then structure builds up from subgalactic scales in a roughly hierarchical way. The observed pattern of galaxy clustering can be reproduced if either Ω « 0.2 and the galaxies are distributed as the mass, or if Ω — 1, H 0 = 50 km s -1 Mpc -1 and the galaxies form only at high peaks of the smoothed linear density field. The open model, however, is marginally ruled out by the observed small-scale isotropy of the microwave background, whereas the flat one is consistent with such observations. With no further free parameters a flat cold dark-matter universe produces the correct abundance of rich galaxy clusters and of galactic halos; the latter have flat rotation curves with amplitudes spanning the observed range. Preliminary calculations indicate that the properties of voids may be consistent with the data, but the correlations of rich clusters appear to be somewhat weaker than those reported for Abell clusters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 485 (4) ◽  
pp. 5474-5489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Lovell ◽  
Jesús Zavala ◽  
Mark Vogelsberger

Abstract A cut-off in the linear matter power spectrum at dwarf galaxy scales has been shown to affect the abundance, formation mechanism and age of dwarf haloes, and their galaxies at high and low redshifts. We use hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation within the ETHOS framework in a benchmark model that has such a cut-off and that has been shown to be an alternative to the cold dark matter (CDM) model that alleviates its dwarf-scale challenges. We show how galaxies in this model form differently to CDM, on a halo-by-halo basis, at redshifts z ≥ 6. We show that when CDM haloes with masses around the ETHOS half-mode mass scale are resimulated with the ETHOS matter power spectrum, they form with 50 per cent less mass than their CDM counterparts due to their later formation times, yet they retain more of their gas reservoir due to the different behaviour of gas and dark matter during the monolithic collapse of the first haloes in models with a galactic-scale cut-off. As a result, galaxies in ETHOS haloes near the cut-off scale grow rapidly between z = 10 and 6 and by z = 6 end up having very similar stellar masses, higher gas fractions and higher star formation rates relative to their CDM counterparts. We highlight these differences by making predictions for how the number of galaxies with old stellar populations is suppressed in ETHOS for both z = 6 galaxies and for gas-poor Local Group fossil galaxies. Interestingly, we find an age gradient in ETHOS between galaxies that form in high- and low-density environments.


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