Modifying PyUltraLight to model scalar dark matter with self-interactions

Abstract

We introduce a modification of the pysiultralight code that models the dynamical evolution of ultralight axionlike scalar dark matter fields. Our modified code, pysiultralight, adds a quartic, self-interaction term to reflect the one which arises naturally in axionlike particle models. Using a particle mass of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}22}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}/{\mathrm{c}}^{2}$, we show that pysiultralight produces spatially oscillating solitons, exploding solitons, and collapsing solitons which prior analytic work shows will occur with attractive self-interactions. Using our code we calculate the oscillation frequency as a function of soliton mass and equilibrium radius in the presence of attractive self-interactions. We show that when the soliton mass is below the critical mass (${M}_{c}=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}{M}_{\mathrm{max}}$) described by Chavanis [Phys. Rev. D 94, 083007 (2016)] and the initial radius is within a specific range, solitons are unstable and explode. We test the maximum mass criteria described by Chavanis [Phys. Rev. D 94, 083007 (2016)] and Chavanis and Delfini [Phys. Rev. D 84, 043532 (2011)] for a soliton to collapse when attractive self-interactions are included. We also analyze both binary soliton collisions and a soliton rotating around a central mass with attractive and repulsive self-interactions. We find that when attractive self-interactions are included, the density profiles get distorted after a binary collision. We also find that a soliton is less susceptible to tidal stripping when attractive self-interactions are included. We find that the opposite is true for repulsive self-interactions in that solitons would be more easily tidally stripped. Including self-interactions might therefore influence the survival timescales of infalling solitons.