No Arabic abstract
We obtain predictions for the properties of cold dark matter annihilation radiation using high resolution hydrodynamic zoom-in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies (APOSTLE project) carried out as part of the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) programme. Galactic halos in the simulation have significantly different properties from those assumed in the standard halo model often used in dark matter detection studies. The formation of the galaxy causes a contraction of the dark matter halo, whose density profile develops a steeper slope than the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile between $rapprox1.5$ kpc and $rapprox10$ kpc. At smaller radii, $rlesssim1.5$ kpc, the halos develop a flatter than NFW slope. This unexpected feature may be specific to our particular choice of subgrid physics model but nevertheless the dark matter density profiles agree within 30% as the mass resolution is increased by a factor 150. The inner regions of the halos are almost perfectly spherical (axis ratios $b/a > 0.97$ within $r=1$ kpc) and there is no offset larger than 45 pc between the centre of the stellar distribution and the centre of the dark halo. The morphology of the predicted dark matter annihilation radiation signal is in broad agreement with $gamma$-ray observations at large Galactic latitudes ($bgtrsim3^circ$). At smaller angles, the inferred signal in one of our four galaxies is similar to that which is observed but it is significantly weaker in the other three.
We perform a comprehensive study of Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxies to constrain the fundamental properties of dark matter (DM). This analysis fully incorporates inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution and detectability of MW satellites and marginalizes over uncertainties in the mapping between galaxies and DM halos, the properties of the MW system, and the disruption of subhalos by the MW disk. Our results are consistent with the cold, collisionless DM paradigm and yield the strongest cosmological constraints to date on particle models of warm, interacting, and fuzzy dark matter. At $95%$ confidence, we report limits on (i) the mass of thermal relic warm DM, $m_{rm WDM} > 6.5 mathrm{keV}$ (free-streaming length, $lambda_{rm{fs}} lesssim 10,h^{-1} mathrm{kpc}$), (ii) the velocity-independent DM-proton scattering cross section, $sigma_{0} < 8.8times 10^{-29} mathrm{cm}^{2}$ for a $100 mathrm{MeV}$ DM particle mass (DM-proton coupling, $c_p lesssim (0.3 mathrm{GeV})^{-2}$), and (iii) the mass of fuzzy DM, $m_{phi}> 2.9 times 10^{-21} mathrm{eV}$ (de Broglie wavelength, $lambda_{rm{dB}} lesssim 0.5 mathrm{kpc}$). These constraints are complementary to other observational and laboratory constraints on DM properties.
A small fraction of thermalized dark radiation that transitions into cold dark matter (CDM) between big bang nucleosynthesis and matter-radiation equality can account for the entire dark matter relic density. Because of its transition from dark radiation, late-forming dark matter (LFDM) suppresses the growth of linear matter perturbations and imprints the oscillatory signatures of dark radiation perturbations on small scales. The cutoff scale in the linear matter power spectrum is set by the redshift $z_T$ of the phase transition; tracers of small-scale structure can therefore be used to infer the LFDM formation epoch. Here, we use a forward model of the Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxy population to address the question: How late can dark matter form? For dark radiation with strong self-interactions, which arises in theories of neutrinolike LFDM, we report $z_{T}>5.5times 10^6$ at $95%$ confidence based on the abundance of known MW satellite galaxies. This limit rigorously accounts for observational incompleteness corrections, marginalizes over uncertainties in the connection between dwarf galaxies and dark matter halos, and improves upon galaxy clustering and Lyman-$alpha$ forest constraints by nearly an order of magnitude. We show that this limit can also be interpreted as a lower bound on $z_T$ for LFDM that free-streams prior to its phase transition, although dedicated simulations will be needed to analyze this case in detail. Thus, dark matter created by a transition from dark radiation must form no later than one week after the big bang.
In the thermal dark matter (DM) paradigm, primordial interactions between DM and Standard Model particles are responsible for the observed DM relic density. In Boehm et al. (2014), we showed that weak-strength interactions between DM and radiation (photons or neutrinos) can erase small-scale density fluctuations, leading to a suppression of the matter power spectrum compared to the collisionless cold DM (CDM) model. This results in fewer DM subhaloes within Milky Way-like DM haloes, implying a reduction in the abundance of satellite galaxies. Here we use very high resolution N-body simulations to measure the dynamics of these subhaloes. We find that when interactions are included, the largest subhaloes are less concentrated than their counterparts in the collisionless CDM model and have rotation curves that match observational data, providing a new solution to the too big to fail problem.
We determine the dark matter pair-wise relative velocity distribution in a set of Milky Way-like halos in the Auriga and APOSTLE simulations. Focusing on the smooth halo component, the relative velocity distribution is well-described by a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution over nearly all radii in the halo. We explore the implications for velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation, focusing on four models which scale as different powers of the relative velocity: Sommerfeld, s-wave, p-wave, and d-wave models. We show that the J-factors scale as the moments of the relative velocity distribution, and that the halo-to-halo scatter is largest for d-wave, and smallest for Sommerfeld models. The J-factor is strongly correlated with the dark matter density in the halo, and is very weakly correlated with the velocity dispersion. This implies that if the dark matter density in the Milky Way can be robustly determined, one can accurately predict the dark matter annihilation signal, without the need to identify the dark matter velocity distribution in the Galaxy.
An analytical model predicting the growth rates, the absolute growth times and the saturation values of the magnetic field strength within galactic haloes is presented. The analytical results are compared to cosmological MHD simulations of Milky-Way like galactic halo formation performed with the N-body / textsc{Spmhd} code textsc{Gadget}. The halo has a mass of $approx{}3cdot{}10^{12}$ $M_{odot}$ and a virial radius of $approx{}$270 kpc. The simulations in a $Lambda$CDM cosmology also include radiative cooling, star formation, supernova feedback and the description of non-ideal MHD. A primordial magnetic seed field ranging from $10^{-10}$ to $10^{-34}$ G in strength agglomerates together with the gas within filaments and protohaloes. There, it is amplified within a couple of hundred million years up to equipartition with the corresponding turbulent energy. The magnetic field strength increases by turbulent small-scale dynamo action. The turbulence is generated by the gravitational collapse and by supernova feedback. Subsequently, a series of halo mergers leads to shock waves and amplification processes magnetizing the surrounding gas within a few billion years. At first, the magnetic energy grows on small scales and then self-organizes to larger scales. Magnetic field strengths of $approx{}10^{-6}$ G are reached in the center of the halo and drop to $approx{}10^{-9}$ G in the IGM. Analyzing the saturation levels and growth rates, the model is able to describe the process of magnetic amplification notably well and confirms the results of the simulations.