1. Cosmological simulations with rare and frequent dark matter self-interactions
- Author
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Moritz S Fischer, Marcus Brüggen, Kai Schmidt-Hoberg, Klaus Dolag, Felix Kahlhoefer, Antonio Ragagnin, and Andrew Robertson
- Subjects
cosmological model ,matter: power spectrum ,dark matter: interaction ,Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) ,scattering [dark matter] ,satellite ,scattering, small-angle ,FOS: Physical sciences ,dark matter: density ,dark matter ,matter, power spectrum ,methods: numerical ,halo: density ,High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) ,dark matter: halo ,density [halo] ,correlation function ,numerical calculations ,dark matter, scattering ,halo, density ,dark matter, halo ,density [dark matter] ,two-point function ,halo [dark matter] ,numerical [methods] ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,suppression ,Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,scattering: small-angle ,galaxies: haloes ,dark matter: scattering ,power spectrum [matter] ,haloes [galaxies] ,High Energy Physics - Phenomenology ,wide-angle ,astroparticle physics ,Space and Planetary Science ,Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) ,small-angle [scattering] ,ddc:520 ,interaction [dark matter] ,self-force ,dark matter, density ,Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 516(2), 1923 - 1940 (2022). doi:10.1093/mnras/stac2207, Dark matter (DM) with self-interactions is a promising solution for the small-scale problems of the standard cosmological model. Here we perform the first cosmological simulation of frequent DM self-interactions, corresponding to small-angle DM scatterings. The focus of our analysis lies in finding and understanding differences to the traditionally assumed rare DM (large-angle) self-scatterings. For this purpose, we compute the distribution of DM densities, the matter power spectrum, the two-point correlation function, and the halo and subhalo mass functions. Furthermore, we investigate the density profiles of the DM haloes and their shapes. We find that overall large-angle and small-angle scatterings behave fairly similarly with a few exceptions. In particular, the number of satellites is considerably suppressed for frequent compared to rare self-interactions with the same cross-section. Overall, we observe that while differences between the two cases may be difficult to establish using a single measure, the degeneracy may be broken through a combination of multiple ones. For instance, the combination of satellite counts with halo density or shape profiles could allow discriminating between rare and frequent self-interactions. As a by-product of our analysis, we provide – for the first time – upper limits on the cross-section for frequent self-interactions., Published by Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford
- Published
- 2022
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