The Origin of Dark Matter Halo Profiles

Abstract

A longstanding puzzle of fundamental importance in modern cosmology has been the origin of the nearly universal density profiles of dark matter halos found in N-body simulations -- the so-called NFW profile. We show how this behavior may be understood, simply, by applying adiabatic contraction to peaks of Gaussian random fields. We argue that dynamical friction acts to reduce enormously the effect of random scatter in the properties of initial peaks, providing a key simplification. We compare our model predictions with results of the ultra-high resolution Via Lactea-II N-body simulation, and find superb agreement. We show how our model may be used to predict the distribution of halo properties like concentration. Our results suggest that many of the basic properties of halo structure may be understood using extremely simple physics.

arXiv commentv2: updated references, submitted to ApJ

References in corpus (26)

• Ellipsoidal collapse and an improved model for the number and spatial distribution of dark matter haloes
• Concentrations of Dark Halos from their Assembly Histories
• Resolving the Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• Clumps and streams in the local dark matter distribution
• The Diversity and Similarity of Simulated Cold Dark Matter Halos
• The redshift dependence of the structure of massive LCDM halos
• Quantifying the heart of darkness with GHALO - a multi-billion particle simulation of our galactic halo
• The Growth and Structure of Dark Matter Haloes
• Halo Assembly Bias in Hierarchical Structure Formation
• Mass and Redshift Dependence of Dark Halo Structure
• A Universal Density Profile for Dark and Luminous Matter?
• The distribution and kinematics of early high-sigma peaks in present-day haloes: implications for rare objects and old stellar populations
• How universal are the density profiles of dark halos?
• Assembly History and Structure of Galactic Cold Dark Matter Halos
• On the origin of cold dark matter halo density profiles
• The Cusp/Core problem and the Secondary Infall Model
• Mass growth and density profiles of dark matter halos in hierarchical clustering
• Collapse Barriers and Halo Abundance: Testing the Excursion Set Ansatz
• The Structure of Halos: Implications for Group and Cluster Cosmology
• Are mergers responsible for universal halo properties?
• Exploring Dark Matter with Milky Way substructure
• Self-Similar Solutions of Triaxial Dark Matter Halos
• Dark-Halo Cusp: Asymptotic Convergence
• The Dark Matter Annihilation Signal from Dwarf Galaxies and Subhalos
• On relaxation processes in collisionless mergers
• Non-universality of halo profiles and implications for dark matter experiments

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Cosmological Parameters from Observations of Galaxy Clusters
• The splashback radius as a physical halo boundary and the growth of halo mass
• Splashback in accreting dark matter halos
• Galaxy Assembly Bias: A Significant Source of Systematic Error in the Galaxy-Halo Relationship
• The Halo Boundary of Galaxy Clusters in the SDSS
• A generalized local ansatz and its effect on halo bias
• Earth-mass haloes and the emergence of NFW density profiles
• How Biased Are Halo Properties in Cosmological Simulations?
• Connecting the structure of dark matter haloes to the primordial power spectrum
• Does Concentration Drive the Scatter in the Stellar-to-Halo Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters?
• The Phase Space Structure of Dark Matter Halos
• Gravitational Collapse in One Dimension
• On the evolution of cluster scaling relations
• A new constraint on millicharged dark matter from galaxy clusters
• Evolution of the gas mass fraction in galaxy clusters
• A Random Walk Model for Dark Matter Halo Concentrations
• MultiCAM: A multivariable framework for connecting the mass accretion history of haloes with their properties
• A Universal Analytic Model for Gravitational Lensing by Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
• Analytical derivation of the radial distribution function in spherical dark matter halos