The interface of gravity and dark energy

Abstract

At sufficiently large radii dark energy modifies the behavior of (a) bound orbits around a galaxy and (b) virialized gas in a cluster of galaxies. Dark energy also provides a natural cutoff to a cluster’s dark matter halo. In (a) there exists a maximum circular orbit beyond which periodic motion is no longer possible, and orbital evolution near critical binding is analytically calculable using an adiabatic invariant integral. The finding implicates the study of wide galaxy pairs. In (b), dark energy necessitates the use of a generalized Virial Theorem to describe gas at the outskirts of a cluster. When coupled to the baryonic escape condition, aided by dark energy, the results is a radius beyond which the continued establishment of a hydrostatic halo of thermalized baryons is untenable. This leads to a theoretically motivated virial radius. We use this theory to probe the structure of a cluster’s baryonic halo and apply it to X-ray and weak-lensing data collected on cluster Abell 1835. We find that gas in its outskirts deviates significantly from hydrostatic equilibrium beginning at ∼1.3 Mpc , the ‘inner’ virial radius. We also define a model dependent dark matter halo cutoff radius to A1835. The dark matter cutoff gives an upper limit to the cluster’s total mass of ∼7×1015M⊙ . Moreover, it is possible to derive an ‘outer’ hydrostatic equilibrium cutoff radius given a dark matter cutoff radius. A region of cluster gas transport and turbulence occurs between the inner and outer cutoff radii.