Puzzling outer-density profile of the dark matter halo in the Andromeda galaxy

Abstract

Abstract The cold dark matter (CDM) cosmology, which is the standard theory of the structure formation in the universe, predicts that the outer density profile of dark matter halos decreases with the cube of distance from the center. However, so far not much effort has been expended in examining this hypothesis. In the halo of the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), large-scale stellar structures detected by the recent observations provide a potentially suitable window to investigate the mass-density distribution of the dark matter halo. We explore the density structure of the dark matter halo in M 31 using an N-body simulation of the interaction between an accreting satellite galaxy and M 31. To reproduce the Andromeda Giant Southern Stream and the stellar shells at the east and west sides of M 31, we find the sufficient condition for the power-law index α of the outer density distribution of the dark matter halo. The best-fitting parameter is α = −3.7, which is steeper than the CDM prediction.