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Register a new userThe origin of the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation in $Lambda$CDM
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We examine the origin of the mass discrepancy--radial acceleration relation (MDAR) of disk galaxies. This is a tight empirical correlation between the disk centripetal acceleration and that expected from the baryonic component. The MDAR holds for most radii probed by disk kinematic tracers, regardless of galaxy mass or surface brightness. The relation has two characteristic accelerations; $a_0$, above which all galaxies are baryon-dominated; and $a_{rm min}$, an effective minimum aceleration probed by kinematic tracers in isolated galaxies. We use a simple model to show that these trends arise naturally in $Lambda$CDM. This is because: (i) disk galaxies in $Lambda$CDM form at the centre of dark matter haloes spanning a relatively narrow range of virial mass; (ii) cold dark matter halo acceleration profiles are self-similar and have a broad maximum at the centre, reaching values bracketed precisely by $a_{rm min}$ and $a_0$ in that mass range; and (iii) halo mass and galaxy size scale relatively tightly with the baryonic mass of a galaxy in any successful $Lambda$CDM galaxy formation model. Explaining the MDAR in $Lambda$CDM does not require modifications to the cuspy inner mass profiles of dark haloes, although these may help to understand the detailed rotation curves of some dwarf galaxies and the origin of extreme outliers from the main relation. The MDAR is just a reflection of the self-similar nature of cold dark matter haloes and of the physical scales introduced by the galaxy formation process.
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We study the radial acceleration relation (RAR) between the total ($a_{rm tot}$) and baryonic ($a_{rm bary}$) centripetal acceleration profiles of central galaxies in the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm. We analytically show that the RAR is intimately connected with the physics of the quasi-adiabatic relaxation of dark matter in the presence of baryons in deep potential wells. This cleanly demonstrates how the mean RAR and its scatter emerge in the low-acceleration regime ($10^{-12},{rm m,s}^{-2}lesssim a_{rm bary}lesssim10^{-10},{rm m,s}^{-2}$) from an interplay between baryonic feedback processes and the distribution of CDM in dark halos. Our framework allows us to go further and study both higher and lower accelerations in detail, using analytical approximations and a realistic mock catalog of $sim342,000$ low-redshift central galaxies with $M_rleq-19$. We show that, while the RAR in the baryon-dominated, high-acceleration regime ($a_{rm bary}gtrsim10^{-10},{rm m,s}^{-2}$) is very sensitive to details of the relaxation physics, a simple `baryonification prescription matching the relaxation results of hydrodynamical CDM simulations is remarkably successful in reproducing the observed RAR without any tuning. And in the (currently unobserved) ultra-low-acceleration regime ($a_{rm bary}lesssim 10^{-12},{rm m,s}^{-2}$), the RAR is sensitive to the abundance of diffuse gas in the halo outskirts, with our default model predicting a distinctive break from a simple power-law-like relation for HI-deficient, diffuse gas-rich centrals. Our mocks also show that the RAR provides more robust, testable predictions of the $Lambda$CDM paradigm at galactic scales, with implications for alternative gravity theories, than the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation.
We analyze the total and baryonic acceleration profiles of a set of well-resolved galaxies identified in the EAGLE suite of hydrodynamic simulations. Our runs start from the same initial conditions but adopt different prescriptions for unresolved stellar and AGN feedback, resulting in diverse populations of galaxies by the present day. Some of them reproduce observed galaxy scaling relations, while others do not. However, regardless of the feedback implementation, all of our galaxies follow closely a simple relationship between the total and baryonic acceleration profiles, consistent with recent observations of rotationally supported galaxies. The relation has small scatter: different feedback implementations -- which produce different galaxy populations -- mainly shift galaxies along the relation, rather than perpendicular to it. Furthermore, galaxies exhibit a characteristic acceleration, $g_{dagger}$, above which baryons dominate the mass budget, as observed. These observations, consistent with simple modified Newtonian dynamics, can be accommodated within the standard cold dark matter paradigm.
We analyse the dark, gas, and stellar mass assembly histories of low-mass halos (Mvir ~ 10^10.3 - 10^12.3 M_sun) identified at redshift z = 0 in cosmological numerical simulations. Our results indicate that for halos in a given present-day mass bin, the gas-to-baryon fraction inside the virial radius does not evolve significantly with time, ranging from ~0.8 for smaller halos to ~0.5 for the largest ones. Most of the baryons are located actually not in the galaxies but in the intrahalo gas; for the more massive halos, the intrahalo gas-to-galaxy mass ratio is approximately the same at all redshifts, z, but for the least massive halos, it strongly increases with z. The intrahalo gas in the former halos gets hotter with time, being dominant at z = 0, while in the latter halos, it is mostly cold at all epochs. The multiphase ISM and thermal feedback models in our simulations work in the direction of delaying the stellar mass growth of low-mass galaxies.
The observed tightness of the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation (MDAR) poses a fine-tuning challenge to current models of galaxy formation. We propose that this relation could arise from collisional interactions between baryons and dark matter (DM) particles, without the need for modification of gravity or ad hoc feedback processes. We assume that these interactions satisfy the following three conditions: (i) the relaxation time of DM particles is comparable to the dynamical time in disk galaxies; (ii) DM exchanges energy with baryons due to elastic collisions; (iii) the product between the baryon-DM cross section and the typical energy exchanged in a collision is inversely proportional to the DM number density. We present an example of a particle physics model that gives a DM-baryon cross section with the desired density and velocity dependence. Direct detection constraints require our DM particles to be either very light ($m << m_b$) or very heavy ($m >> m_b$), corresponding respectively to heating and cooling of DM by baryons. In both cases, our mechanism applies and an equilibrium configuration can in principle be reached. Here, we focus on the heavy DM/cooling case as it is technically simpler. Under these assumptions, we find that rotationally-supported disk galaxies could naturally settle to equilibrium configurations satisfying a MDAR at all radii without invoking finely tuned feedback processes. We also discuss issues related to the small scale clumpiness of baryons, as well as predictions for pressure-supported systems. We argue in particular that galaxy clusters do not follow the MDAR despite being DM-dominated because they have not reached their equilibrium configuration. Finally, we revisit existing phenomenological, astrophysical and cosmological constraints on baryon-DM interactions in light of the unusual density dependence of the cross section.
The spherical Jeans equation is a widely used tool for dynamical study of gravitating systems in astronomy. Here we test its efficacy in robustly weighing the mass of Milky Way analogues, given they need not be in equilibrium or even spherical. Utilizing Milky Way stellar halos simulated in accordance with $Lambda{rm CDM}$ cosmology by Bullock and Johnston (2005) and analysing them under the Jeans formalism, we recover the underlying mass distribution of the parent galaxy, within distance $r/{rm kpc}in[10,100]$, with a bias of $sim12%$ and a dispersion of $sim14%$. Additionally, the mass profiles of triaxial dark matter halos taken from the SURFS simulation, within scaled radius $0.2<r/r_{rm max}<3$, are measured with a bias of $sim-2.4%$ and a dispersion of $sim10%$. The obtained dispersion is not because of Poisson noise due to small particle numbers as it is twice the later. We interpret the dispersion to be due to the inherent nature of the $Lambda{rm CDM}$ halos, for example being aspherical and out-of-equilibrium. Hence the dispersion obtained for stellar halos sets a limit of about $12%$ (after adjusting for random uncertainty) on the accuracy with which the mass profiles of the Milky Way-like galaxies can be reconstructed using the spherical Jeans equation. This limit is independent of the quantity and quality of the observational data. The reason for a non zero bias is not clear, hence its interpretation is not obvious at this stage.
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