Simulations of gravitational heating due to early matter domination

Abstract

In cosmologies with an early matter-dominated era (EMDE) prior to Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the boosted growth of small-scale matter perturbations during the EMDE leads to microhalo formation long before halos would otherwise begin to form. For a range of models, halos can even form during the EMDE itself. These halos would dissipate at the end of the EMDE, releasing their gravitationally heated dark matter and thereby imprintinga free-streaming cut-off on the matter power spectrum.We conduct the first cosmological N-body simulations of the formation and evaporation of halos during and after an EMDE.We show that in these scenarios, the free-streaming cut-off after the EMDE can be predicted accurately from the linear matter power spectrum. Although the free streaming can erase much of the EMDE-driven boost to density perturbations, we use our findings to show that the (re-)formation of halos after the EMDE nevertheless proceeds before redshift ∼ 1000. Early-forming microhalos are a key observational signature of an EMDE, and our prescription for the impact of gravitational heating will allow studies of the observational status and prospects of EMDE scenarios to cover a much wider range of parameters.