Dark matter-radiation interactions: the impact on dark matter haloes

Schewtschenko, Jascha; Wilkinson, Ryan; Baugh, Carlton; Boehm, Celine; Pascoli, Silvia

doi:10.1093/mnras/stv431

Dark matter-radiation interactions: the impact on dark matter haloes

Schewtschenko, Jascha; Wilkinson, Ryan; Baugh, Carlton; Boehm, Celine; Pascoli, Silvia

Authors

Jascha Schewtschenko

Ryan Wilkinson

Professor Carlton Baugh c.m.baugh@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Celine Boehm

Professor Silvia Pascoli silvia.pascoli@durham.ac.uk
Visiting Professor

Abstract

Interactions between dark matter (DM) and radiation (photons or neutrinos) in the early Universe suppress density fluctuations on small mass scales. Here, we perform a thorough analysis of structure formation in the fully non-linear regime using N-body simulations for models with DM–radiation interactions and compare the results to a traditional calculation in which DM only interacts gravitationally. Significant differences arise due to the presence of interactions, in terms of the number of low-mass DM haloes and their properties, such as their spin and density profile. These differences are clearly seen even for haloes more massive than the scale on which density fluctuations are suppressed. We also show that semi-analytical descriptions of the matter distribution in the non-linear regime fail to reproduce our numerical results, emphasizing the challenge of predicting structure formation in models with physics beyond collisionless DM.

Citation

Schewtschenko, J., Wilkinson, R., Baugh, C., Boehm, C., & Pascoli, S. (2015). Dark matter-radiation interactions: the impact on dark matter haloes. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 449(4), 3587-3596. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv431

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 24, 2015
Online Publication Date	Apr 10, 2015
Publication Date	Jun 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Dec 17, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Apr 22, 2015
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN	0035-8711
Electronic ISSN	1365-2966
Publisher	Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	449
Issue	4
Pages	3587-3596
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv431
Keywords	Astroparticle physics, Galaxies: haloes, Dark matter, Large-scale structure of Universe.
Related Public URLs	http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.4905

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2015 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.