No Arabic abstract
We use a 200 $h^{-1}Mpc$ a side N-body simulation to study the mass accretion history (MAH) of dark matter halos to be accreted by larger halos, which we call infall halos. We define a quantity $a_{rm nf}equiv (1+z_{rm f})/(1+z_{rm peak})$ to characterize the MAH of infall halos, where $z_{rm peak}$ and $z_{rm f}$ are the accretion and formation redshifts, respectively. We find that, at given $z_{rm peak}$, their MAH is bimodal. Infall halos are dominated by a young population at high redshift and by an old population at low redshift. For the young population, the $a_{rm nf}$ distribution is narrow and peaks at about $1.2$, independent of $z_{rm peak}$, while for the old population, the peak position and width of the $a_{rm nf}$ distribution both increases with decreasing $z_{rm peak}$ and are both larger than those of the young population. This bimodal distribution is found to be closely connected to the two phases in the MAHs of halos. While members of the young population are still in the fast accretion phase at $z_{rm peak}$, those of the old population have already entered the slow accretion phase at $z_{rm peak}$. This bimodal distribution is not found for the whole halo population, nor is it seen in halo merger trees generated with the extended Press-Schechter formalism. The infall halo population at $z_{rm peak}$ are, on average, younger than the whole halo population of similar masses identified at the same redshift. We discuss the implications of our findings in connection to the bimodal color distribution of observed galaxies and to the link between central and satellite galaxies.
We use N-body simulations to investigate the radial dependence of the density and velocity dispersion in cold dark matter (CDM) halos. In particular, we explore how closely Q rho/sigma^3, a surrogate measure of the phase-space density, follows a power-law in radius. Our study extends earlier work by considering, in addition to spherically-averaged profiles, local Q-estimates for individual particles, Q_i; profiles based on the ellipsoidal radius dictated by the triaxial structure of the halo, Q_i(r); and by carefully removing substructures in order to focus on the profile of the smooth halo, Q^s. The resulting Q_i^s(r) profiles follow closely a power law near the center, but show a clear upturn from this trend near the virial radius, r_{200}. The location and magnitude of the deviations are in excellent agreement with the predictions from Bertschingers spherical secondary-infall similarity solution. In this model, Q propto r^{-1.875} in the inner, virialized regions, but departures from a power-law occur near r_{200} because of the proximity of this radius to the location of the first shell crossing - the shock radius in the case of a collisional fluid. Particles there have not yet fully virialized, and so Q departs from the inner power-law profile. Our results imply that the power-law nature of $Q$ profiles only applies to the inner regions and cannot be used to predict accurately the structure of CDM halos beyond their characteristic scale radius.
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 study the probability distribution function (PDF) of relative velocity between two different dark matter halos (i.e. pairwise velocity) with a set of high-resolution cosmological $N$-body simulations. We investigate the pairwise velocity PDFs over a wide range of halo masses of $10^{12.5-15}, h^{-1}M_{odot}$ and redshifts of $0<z<1$. At a given set of masses, redshift and the separation length between two halos, our model requires three parameters to set the pairwise velocity PDF, whereas previous non-Gaussian models in the literature assume four or more free parameters. At the length scales of $r=5-40, [h^{-1}, mathrm{Mpc}]$, our model predicts the mean and dispersion of the pairwise velocity for dark matter halos with their masses of $10^{12.5-13.5} , [h^{-1}M_{odot}]$ at $0.3 < z < 1$ with a 5%-level precision, while the model precision reaches a 20% level (mostly a 10% level) for other masses and redshifts explored in the simulations. We demonstrate that our model of the pairwise velocity PDF provides an accurate mapping of the two-point clustering of massive-galaxy-sized halos at the scales of $O(10), h^{-1}mathrm{Mpc}$ between redshift and real space for a given real-space correlation function. For a mass-limited halo sample with their masses greater than $10^{13.5}, h^{-1}M_{odot}$ at $z=0.55$, our model can explain the monopole and quadropole moments of the redshift-space two-point correlations with a precision better than 5% at the scales of $5-40$ and $10-30, h^{-1}mathrm{Mpc}$, respectively. Our model of the pairwise velocity PDF will give a detailed explanation of statistics of massive galaxies at the intermediate scales in redshift surveys, including the non-linear redshift-space distortion effect in two-point correlation functions and the measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect.
Using the self-consistent modeling of the conditional stellar mass functions across cosmic time by Yang et al. (2012), we make model predictions for the star formation histories (SFHs) of {it central} galaxies in halos of different masses. The model requires the following two key ingredients: (i) mass assembly histories of central and satellite galaxies, and (ii) local observational constraints of the star formation rates of central galaxies as function of halo mass. We obtain a universal fitting formula that describes the (median) SFH of central galaxies as function of halo mass, galaxy stellar mass and redshift. We use this model to make predictions for various aspects of the star formation rates of central galaxies across cosmic time. Our main findings are the following. (1) The specific star formation rate (SSFR) at high $z$ increases rapidly with increasing redshift [$propto (1+z)^{2.5}$] for halos of a given mass and only slowly with halo mass ($propto M_h^{0.12}$) at a given $z$, in almost perfect agreement with the specific mass accretion rate of dark matter halos. (2) The ratio between the star formation rate (SFR) in the main-branch progenitor and the final stellar mass of a galaxy peaks roughly at a constant value, $sim 10^{-9.3} h^2 {rm yr}^{-1}$, independent of halo mass or the final stellar mass of the galaxy. However, the redshift at which the SFR peaks increases rapidly with halo mass. (3) More than half of the stars in the present-day Universe were formed in halos with $10^{11.1}msunh < M_h < 10^{12.3}msunh$ in the redshift range $0.4 < z < 1.9$. (4) ... [abridged]
Dissipative dark matter self-interactions can affect halo evolution and change its structure. We perform a series of controlled N-body simulations to study impacts of the dissipative interactions on halo properties. The interplay between gravitational contraction and collisional dissipation can significantly speed up the onset of gravothermal collapse, resulting in a steep inner density profile. For reasonable choices of model parameters controlling the dissipation, the collapse timescale can be a factor of 10-100 shorter than that predicted in purely elastic self-interacting dark matter. The effect is maximized when energy loss per collision is comparable to characteristic kinetic energy of dark matter particles in the halo. Our simulations provide guidance for testing the dissipative nature of dark matter with astrophysical observations.