Warm Dark Matter Scenario Research Articles

The Power Spectrum Dependence of Dark Matter Halo Concentrations

High-resolution N-body simulations are used to examine the power spectrum dependence of the concentration of galaxy-sized dark matter halos. It is found that dark halo concentrations depend on the amplitude of mass fluctuations as well as on the ratio of power between small and virial mass scales. This finding is consistent with the original results of Navarro, Frenk, and White (NFW) and allows their model to be extended to include power spectra substantially different from cold dark matter (CDM). In particular, the single-parameter model presented here fits the concentration dependence on halo mass for truncated power spectra, such as those expected in the warm dark matter scenario, and predicts a stronger redshift dependence for the concentration of CDM halos than proposed by NFW. The latter conclusion confirms recent suggestions by Bullock and coworkers, although this new modeling differs from theirs in detail. These findings imply that observational limits on the concentration, such as those provided by estimates of the dark matter content within individual galaxies, may be used to constrain the amplitude of mass fluctuations on galactic and subgalactic scales. The constraints on ΛCDM models posed by the dark mass within the solar circle in the Milky Way and by the zero point of the Tully-Fisher relation are revisited, with the result that neither data set is clearly incompatible with the "concordance" (Ω0 = 0.3, Λ0 = 0.7, σ8 = 0.9) ΛCDM cosmogony. This conclusion differs from that reached recently by Navarro and Steinmetz, a disagreement that can be traced to inconsistencies in the normalization of the ΛCDM power spectrum used in that work.

Substructure and Halo Density Profiles in a Warm Dark Matter Cosmology

We performed a series of high-resolution collisionless N-body simulations designed to study the substructure of Milky Way-size galactic halos (host halos) and the density profiles of halos in a warm dark matter (WDM) scenario with a nonvanishing cosmological constant. The virial masses of the host halos range from 3.5 × 1012 to 1.7 × 1012 h-1 M☉, and they have more than 105 particles each. A key feature of the WDM power spectrum is the free-streaming length Rf,WDM, which fixes an additional parameter for the model of structure formation. We analyze the substructure of host halos using three Rf,WDM values: 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 Mpc, and compare results to the predictions of the cold dark matter (CDM) model. We find that guest halos (satellites) do form in the WDM scenario, but are more easily destroyed by dynamical friction and tidal disruption than their counterparts in a CDM model. The small number of guest halos that we find in the WDM models with respect to the CDM one is the result of a lower guest halo accretion and a higher satellite destruction rate. These two phenomena operate almost with the same intensity in delivering a reduced number of guest halos at z = 0. For the model with Rf,WDM = 0.1 Mpc, the number of accreted small halos is a factor of 2.5 below that of the CDM model, while the fraction of destroyed satellites is almost twice as large as that of the CDM model. The larger the Rf,WDM value, the greater the size of these two effects and the smaller the abundance of satellites. Under the assumption that each guest halo hosts a luminous galaxy, we find that the observed circular velocity function of satellites around the Milky Way and Andromeda is well described by the Rf,WDM = 0.1 Mpc WDM model. In the Rf,WDM = 0.1-0.2 Mpc models, the surviving guest halos at z = 0, whose masses are in the range Mh ≈ 109-1011 h-1 M☉, have an average concentration parameter c1/5 = r(Mh)/r(Mh/5), which is approximately twice as small as that of the corresponding CDM guest halos. This difference very likely produces the higher satellite destruction rate found in the WDM models. The density profile of host halos is well described by the Navarro, Frenk, & White (NFW) fit, whereas guest halos show a wide variety of density profiles. A tendency to form shallow cores is not evident; the profiles, however, are limited by a poor mass resolution in the innermost regions where shallow cores could be expected.