No Arabic abstract
We review how dark matter is distributed in our local neighbourhood from an observational and theoretical perspective. We will start by describing first the dark matter halo of our own galaxy and in the Local Group. Then we proceed to describe the dark matter distribution in the more extended area known as the Local Universe. Depending on the nature of dark matter, numerical simulations predict different abundances of substructures in Local Group galaxies, in the number of void regions and in the abundance of low rotational velocity galaxies in the Local Universe. By comparing these predictions with the most recent observations, strong constrains on the physical properties of the dark matter particles can be derived. We devote particular attention to the results from the Constrained Local UniversE Simulations (CLUES) project, a special set of simulations whose initial conditions are constrained by observational data from the Local Universe. The resulting simulations are designed to reproduce the observed structures in the nearby universe. The CLUES provides a numerical laboratory for simulating the Local Group of galaxies and exploring the physics of galaxy formation in an environment designed to follow the observed Local Universe. It has come of age as the numerical analogue of Near-Field Cosmology.
Sterile neutrinos comprise an entire class of dark matter models that, depending on their production mechanism, can be hot, warm, or cold dark matter. We simulate the Local Group and representative volumes of the Universe in a variety of sterile neutrino models, all of which are consistent with the possible existence of a radiative decay line at ~3.5 keV. We compare models of production via resonances in the presence of a lepton asymmetry (suggested by Shi & Fuller 1999) to thermal models. We find that properties in the highly nonlinear regime - e.g., counts of satellites and internal properties of halos and subhalos - are insensitive to the precise fall-off in power with wavenumber, indicating that nonlinear evolution essentially washes away differences in the initial (linear) matter power spectrum. In the quasi-linear regime at higher redshifts, however, quantitative differences in the 3D matter power spectra remain, raising the possibility that such models can be tested with future observations of the Lyman-alpha forest. While many of the sterile neutrino models largely eliminate multiple small-scale issues within the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) paradigm, we show that these models may be ruled out in the near future via discoveries of additional dwarf satellites in the Local Group.
We make detailed theoretical predictions for the assembly properties of the Local Group (LG) in the standard LambdaCDM cosmological model. We use three cosmological N-body dark matter simulations from the CLUES project, which are designed to reproduce the main dynamical features of the matter distribution down to the scale of a few Mpc around the LG. Additionally, we use the results of an unconstrained simulation with a sixty times larger volume to calibrate the influence of cosmic variance. We characterize the Mass Aggregation History (MAH) for each halo by three characteristic times, the formation, assembly and last major merger times. A major merger is defined by a minimal mass ratio of 10:1. We find that the three LGs share a similar MAH with formation and last major merger epochs placed on average approx 10 - 12 Gyr ago. Between 12% and 17% of the halos in the mass range 5 x 10^11 Msol/h < M_h < 5 x 10^12 Msol/h have a similar MAH. In a set of pairs of halos within the same mass range, a fraction of 1% to 3% share similar formation properties as both halos in the simulated LG. An unsolved question posed by our results is the dynamical origin of the MAH of the LGs. The isolation criteria commonly used to define LG-like halos in unconstrained simulations do not narrow down the halo population into a set with quiet MAHs, nor does a further constraint to reside in a low density environment. The quiet MAH of the LGs provides a favorable environment for the formation of disk galaxies like the Milky Way and M31. The timing for the beginning of the last major merger in the Milky Way dark matter halo matches with the gas rich merger origin for the thick component in the galactic disk. Our results support the view that the specific large and mid scale environment around the Local Group play a critical role in shaping its MAH and hence its baryonic structure at present.
We present an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon of dynamical friction in a universe where the dark matter is composed entirely of so-called Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM), ultralight bosons of mass $msimmathcal{O}(10^{-22}),$eV. We review the classical treatment of dynamical friction before presenting analytic results in the case of FDM for point masses, extended mass distributions, and FDM backgrounds with finite velocity dispersion. We then test these results against a large suite of fully non-linear simulations that allow us to assess the regime of applicability of the analytic results. We apply these results to a variety of astrophysical problems of interest, including infalling satellites in a galactic dark matter background, and determine that emph{(1)}~for FDM masses $mgtrsim 10^{-21}, {rm eV}, c^{-2}$, the timing problem of the Fornax dwarf spheroidals globular clusters is no longer solved and emph{(2)}~the effects of FDM on the process of dynamical friction for satellites of total mass $M$ and relative velocity $v_{rm rel}$ should require detailed numerical simulations for $left(M/10^9~M_{odot}right) left(m/10^{-22}~{rm eV}right)left(100~{rm km}~{rm s}^{-1}/v_{rm rel}right) sim 1$, parameters which would lie outside the validated range of applicability of any currently developed analytic theory, due to transient wave structures in the time-dependent regime.
When measuring the value of the Hubble parameter, $H_0$, it is necessary to know the recession velocity free of the effects of peculiar velocities. In this work, we study different models of peculiar velocity in the local Universe. In particular, we compare models based on density reconstruction from galaxy redshift surveys and kernel smoothing of peculiar velocity data. The velocity field from the density reconstruction is obtained using the 2M++ galaxy redshift compilation, which is compared to two adaptive kernel-smoothed velocity fields: the first obtained from the 6dF Fundamental Plane sample and the other using a Tully-Fisher catalogue obtained by combining SFI++ and 2MTF. We highlight that smoothed velocity fields should be rescaled to obtain unbiased velocity estimates. Comparing the predictions of these models to the observations from a few test sets of peculiar velocity data, obtained from the Second Amendment Supernovae catalogue and the Tully-Fisher catalogues, we find that 2M++ reconstruction provides a better model of the peculiar velocity in the local Universe than the kernel-smoothed peculiar velocity models. We study the impact of peculiar velocities on the measurement of $H_0$ from gravitational waves and megamasers. In doing so, we introduce a probabilistic framework to marginalize over the peculiar velocity corrections along the line-of-sight. For the megamasers, we find $H_0 = 69^{+2.9}_{-2.8}$ km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1} using the 2M++ velocity field. We also study the peculiar velocity of the the galaxy NGC1052-DF2, concluding that a short $sim$ 13 Mpc distance is not a likely explanation of the anomalously low dark matter fraction of that galaxy.
The cosmic electron and positron excesses have been explained as possible dark matter (DM) annihilation products. In this work we investigate the possible effects of such a DM annihilation scenario during the evolution history of the Universe. We first calculate the extragalactic $gamma$-ray background (EGRB), which is produced through the final state radiation of DM annihilation to charged leptons and the inverse Compton scattering between electrons/positrons and the cosmic microwave background. The DM halo profile and the minimal halo mass, which are not yet well determined from the current N-body simulations, are constrained by the EGRB data from EGRET and Fermi telescopes. Then we discuss the impact of such leptonic DM models on cosmic evolution, such as the reionization and heating of intergalactic medium, neutral Hydrogen 21 cm signal and suppression of structure formation. We show that the impact on the Hydrogen 21 cm signal might show interesting signatures of DM annihilation, but the influence on star formation is not remarkable. Future observations of the 21 cm signals could be used to place new constraints on the properties of DM.