No Arabic abstract
We report on the X-ray observation of a strong lensing selected group, SL2S J08544-0121, with a total mass of $2.4 pm 0.6 times 10^{14}$ $rm{M_odot}$ which revealed a separation of $124pm20$ kpc between the X-ray emitting collisional gas and the collisionless galaxies and dark matter (DM), traced by strong lensing. This source allows to put an order of magnitude estimate to the upper limit to the interaction cross section of DM of 10 cm$^2$ g$^{-1}$. It is the lowest mass object found to date showing a DM-baryons separation and it reveals that the detection of bullet-like objects is not rare and confined to mergers of massive objects opening the possibility of a statistical detection of DM-baryons separation with future surveys.
We present a new strong lensing mass reconstruction of the Bullet cluster (1E 0657-56) at z=0.296, based on WFC3 and ACS HST imaging and VLT/FORS2 spectroscopy. The strong lensing constraints underwent substantial revision compared to previously published analysis, there are now 14 (six new and eight previously known) multiply-imaged systems, of which three have spectroscopically confirmed redshifts (including one newly measured from this work). The reconstructed mass distribution explicitly included the combination of three mass components: i) the intra-cluster gas mass derived from X-ray observation, ii) the cluster galaxies modeled by their fundamental plane scaling relations and iii) dark matter. The model that includes the intra-cluster gas is the one with the best Bayesian evidence. This model has a total RMS value of 0.158 between the predicted and measured image positions for the 14 multiple images considered. The proximity of the total RMS to resolution of HST/WFC3 and ACS (0.07-0.15 FWHM) demonstrates the excellent precision of our mass model. The derived mass model confirms the spatial offset between the X-ray gas and dark matter peaks. The fraction of the galaxy halos mass to total mass is found to be f_s=11+/-5% for a total mass of 2.5+/-0.1 x 10^14 solar mass within a 250 kpc radial aperture.
The impact of the streaming between baryons and dark matter on the first structures has been actively explored by recent studies. We investigate how the key results are affected by two popular approximations. One is to implement the streaming by accounting for only the relative motion while assuming ``baryons trace dark matter spatially at the initialization of simulation. This neglects the smoothing on the gas density taking place before the initialization. In our simulation initialized at $z_i=200$, it overestimates the gas density power spectrum by up to 40% at $kapprox10^2~h~mbox{Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=20$. Halo mass ($M_h$) and baryonic fraction in halos ($f_{b,h}$) are also overestimated, but the relation between the two remains unchanged. The other approximation tested is to artificially amplify the density/velocity fluctuations in the cosmic mean density to simulate the first minihalos that form in overdense regions. This gives a head start to the halo growth while the subsequent growth is similar to that in the mean density. The growth in a true overdense region, on the other hand, is accelerated gradually in time. For example, raising $sigma_8$ by 50% effectively transforms $zrightarrowsqrt{1.5}z$ in the halo mass growth history while in 2-$sigma$ overdensity, the growth is accelerated by a constant in redshift: $zrightarrow{z+4.8}$. As a result, halos have grown more in the former than in the latter before $zapprox27$ and vice versa after. The $f_{b,h}$-$M_h$ relation is unchanged in those cases as well, suggesting that the Pop III formation rate for a given $M_h$ is insensitive to the tested approximations.
The smallest dark matter halos are formed first in the early universe. According to recent studies, the central density cusp is much steeper in these halos than in larger halos and scales as $rho propto r^{-(1.5-1.3)}$. We present results of very large cosmological $N$-body simulations of the hierarchical formation and evolution of halos over a wide mass range, beginning from the formation of the smallest halos. We confirmed early studies that the inner density cusps are steeper in halos at the free streaming scale. The cusp slope gradually becomes shallower as the halo mass increases. The slope of halos 50 times more massive than the smallest halo is approximately $-1.3$. No strong correlation exists between inner slope and the collapse epoch. The cusp slope of halos above the free streaming scale seems to be reduced primarily due to major merger processes. The concentration, estimated at the present universe, is predicted to be $60-70$, consistent with theoretical models and earlier simulations, and ruling out simple power law mass-concentration relations. Microhalos could still exist in the present universe with the same steep density profiles.
We present the first cosmological simulations of dwarf galaxies, which include dark matter self-interactions and baryons. We study two dwarf galaxies within cold dark matter, and four different elastic self-interacting scenarios with constant and velocity-dependent cross sections, motivated by a new force in the hidden dark matter sector. Our highest resolution simulation has a baryonic mass resolution of $1.8times 10^2,{rm M}_odot$ and a gravitational softening length of $34,{rm pc}$ at $z=0$. In this first study we focus on the regime of mostly isolated dwarf galaxies with halo masses $sim10^{10},{rm M}_odot$ where dark matter dynamically dominates even at sub-kpc scales. We find that while the global properties of galaxies of this scale are minimally affected by allowed self-interactions, their internal structures change significantly if the cross section is large enough within the inner sub-kpc region. In these dark-matter-dominated systems, self-scattering ties the shape of the stellar distribution to that of the dark matter distribution. In particular, we find that the stellar core radius is closely related to the dark matter core radius generated by self-interactions. Dark matter collisions lead to dwarf galaxies with larger stellar cores and smaller stellar central densities compared to the cold dark matter case. The central metallicity within $1,{rm kpc}$ is also larger by up to $sim 15%$ in the former case. We conclude that the mass distribution, and characteristics of the central stars in dwarf galaxies can potentially be used to probe the self-interacting nature of dark matter.
Rotation curves of galaxies show a wide range of shapes, which can be paramaterized as scatter in Vrot(1kpc)/Vmax i.e.the ratio of the rotation velocity measured at 1kpc and the maximum measured rotation velocity. We examine whether the observed scatter can be accounted for by combining scatters in disc scale-lengths, the concentration-halo mass relation, and the M*-Mhalo relation. We use these scatters to create model galaxy populations; when housed within dark matter halos that have universal, NFW density profiles, the model does not match the lowest observed values of Vrot(1kpc)/Vmax and has too little scatter in Vrot(1kpc)/Vmax compared to observations. By contrast, a model using a mass dependent dark matter profile, where the inner slope is determined by the ratio of M*/Mhalo, produces galaxies with low values of Vrot(1kpc)/Vmax and a much larger scatter, both in agreement with observation. We conclude that the large observed scatter in Vrot(1kpc)/Vmax favours density profiles that are significantly affected by baryonic processes. Alternative dark matter core formation models such as SIDM may also account for the observed variation in rotation curve shapes, but these observations may provide important constraints in terms of core sizes, and whether they vary with halo mass and/or merger history.