There is No Missing Satellites Problem

Abstract

A critical challenge to the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm is that there are fewer satellites observed around the Milky Way than found in simulations of dark matter substructure. We show that there is a match between the observed satellite counts corrected by the detection efficiency of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (for luminosities $L\gtrsim$ 340 L${}_{\odot }$) and the number of luminous satellites predicted by CDM, assuming an empirical relation between stellar mass and halo mass. The "missing satellites problem", cast in terms of number counts, is thus solved. We also show that warm dark matter models with a thermal relic mass smaller than 4 keV are in tension with satellite counts, putting pressure on the sterile neutrino interpretation of recent X-ray observations. Importantly, the total number of Milky Way satellites depends sensitively on the spatial distribution of satellites, possibly leading to a "too many satellites" problem. Measurements of completely dark halos below $10^8$ M${}_{\odot }$, achievable with substructure lensing and stellar stream perturbations, are the next frontier for tests of CDM.

arXiv comment15 pages, 6 figures, and 3 tables (includes supplementary material). Key results are summarized in Figure 2. Resubmitted to PRL. Comments welcome! In v2, corrected Eq. 6, added additional references, and inserted missing "m" back into abstract due to the end of Beat Michigan Week. Go Bucks! In v3, added detailed discussion of model choices in appendix and misc improvements from referees' feedback

References in corpus (113)

• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• Dark Matter Substructure in Galactic Halos
• Where are the missing galactic satellites?
• The Average Star Formation Histories of Galaxies in Dark Matter Halos from z=0-8
• The Aquarius Project: the subhalos of galactic halos
• Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter
• Galaxies on FIRE (Feedback In Realistic Environments): Stellar Feedback Explains Cosmologically Inefficient Star Formation
• Galactic star formation and accretion histories from matching galaxies to dark matter haloes
• FIRE-2 Simulations: Physics versus Numerics in Galaxy Formation
• Cosmic Structure as the Quantum Interference of a Coherent Dark Wave
• The Dark Side of the Halo Occupation Distribution
• Reionization and the abundance of galactic satellites
• Effect of Reionization on the Structure Formation in the Universe
• Linking halo mass to galaxy luminosity
• Eight New Milky Way Companions Discovered in First-Year Dark Energy Survey Data
• Massloss of galaxies due to a UV-background
• Beasts of the Southern Wild: Discovery of nine Ultra Faint satellites in the vicinity of the Magellanic Clouds
• New Constraints on the free-streaming of warm dark matter from intermediate and small scale Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data
• Eight Ultra-faint Galaxy Candidates Discovered in Year Two of the Dark Energy Survey
• A comprehensive Maximum Likelihood analysis of the structural properties of faint Milky Way satellites
• The properties of warm dark matter haloes
• Hydrodynamic Simulations of Galaxy Formation. II. Photoionization and the Formation of Low Mass Galaxies
• The Effects of Photoionization on Galaxy Formation - I: Model and Results at z=0
• Can Photoionization Squelching Resolve the Sub-structure Crisis?
• Hundreds of Milky Way Satellites? Luminosity Bias in the Satellite Luminosity Function
• The Birth of a Galaxy - III. Propelling reionisation with the faintest galaxies
• The Effects of Photoionization on Galaxy Formation - II: Satellites in the Local Group
• The Connection between Galaxies and Dark Matter Structures in the Local Universe
• The Luminosity Function of the Milky Way Satellites
• Not so lumpy after all: modeling the depletion of dark matter subhalos by Milky Way-like galaxies
• The Quenching of the Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies in the Reionization Era
• ELVIS: Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations
• Galaxy Formation with BECDM: I. Turbulence and relaxation of idealised haloes
• Why Baryons Matter: The Kinematics of Dwarf Spheroidal Satellites
• Disruption of Dark Matter Substructure: Fact or Fiction?
• Simulations of solitonic core mergers in ultra-light axion dark matter cosmologies
• The Anisotropic Distribution of Galactic Satellites
• Dark Matter Substructure in Numerical Simulations: A Tale of Discreteness Noise, Runaway Instabilities, and Artificial Disruption
• The Photo-Evaporation of Dwarf Galaxies During Reionization
• Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey
• Nonlinear Evolution of Cosmological Structures in Warm Dark Matter Models
• Cores in warm dark matter haloes: a Catch 22 problem
• ETHOS - An Effective Theory of Structure Formation: From dark particle physics to the matter distribution of the Universe
• The Distribution of Satellite Galaxies: The Great Pancake
• FIRE in the Field: Simulating the Threshold of Galaxy Formation
• The coupling between the core/cusp and missing satellite problems
• A Baryonic Solution to the Missing Satellites Problem
• Planck intermediate results. XLVII. Planck constraints on reionization history
• The feeble giant. Discovery of a large and diffuse Milky Way dwarf galaxy in the constellation of Crater
• There's no place like home? Statistics of Milky Way-mass dark matter halos
• Substructure depletion in the Milky Way halo by the disk
• Gravitational Lens Models Based on Submillimeter Array Imaging of Herschel-selected Strongly Lensed Sub-millimeter Galaxies at z>1.5
• Quenching and ram pressure stripping of simulated Milky Way satellite galaxies
• Galaxy Properties and UV Escape Fractions During Epoch of Reionization: Results from the Renaissance Simulations
• The pseudo-evolution of halo mass
• Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way Satellites
• The spatial distribution of the Milky Way and Andromeda satellite galaxies
• Simulating galaxies in the reionization era with FIRE-2: galaxy scaling relations, stellar mass functions, and luminosity functions
• The Invisibles: A Detection Algorithm to Trace the Faintest Milky Way Satellites
• The upper bound on the lowest mass halo
• The chosen few: the low mass halos that host faint galaxies
• Dark matter substructure and dwarf galactic satellites
• A Magellanic Origin of the DES Dwarfs
• Scaling Relations and the Fundamental Line of the Local Group Dwarf Galaxies
• The Baryon Cycle of Dwarf Galaxies: Dark, Bursty, Gas-Rich Polluters
• Constraining the WDM Particle Mass with Milky Way Satellites
• Gaia Proper Motions and Orbits of the Ultra-Faint Milky Way Satellites
• Connecting the first galaxies with ultra faint dwarfs in the Local Group: chemical signatures of Population~III stars
• The COpernicus COmplexio: Statistical Properties of Warm Dark Matter Haloes
• Detection of substructure with adaptive optics integral field spectroscopy of the gravitational lens B1422+231
• The Planes of Satellite Galaxies Problem, Suggested Solutions, and Open Questions
• Organized Chaos: Scatter in the relation between stellar mass and halo mass in small galaxies
• The total satellite population of the Milky Way
• A unified model for the spatial and mass distribution of subhaloes
• Small-Scale Structure in the SDSS and LCDM: Isolated L* Galaxies with Bright Satellites
• Linear perturbation theory for tidal streams and the small-scale CDM power spectrum
• Infall Times for Milky Way Satellites From Their Present-Day Kinematics
• The Caterpillar Project: A Large Suite of Milky Way Sized Halos
• Statistics of Satellite Galaxies Around Milky Way-Like Hosts
• The surprising inefficiency of dwarf satellite quenching
• The stellar-to-halo mass relation for Local Group galaxies
• Too Many, Too Few, or Just Right? The Predicted Number and Distribution of Milky Way Dwarf Galaxies
• Measuring the power spectrum of dark matter substructure using strong gravitational lensing
• Faint dwarfs as a test of DM models: WDM vs. CDM
• The Abundance and Radial Distribution of Satellite Galaxies
• The effect of feedback and reionization on star formation in low-mass dwarf galaxy haloes
• Are Great Disks Defined by Satellite Galaxies in Milky-Way Type Halos Rare in $\Lambda$CDM model?
• Satellite galaxies in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation with sterile neutrino dark matter
• Substructure and galaxy formation in the Copernicus Complexio warm dark matter simulations
• The predicted luminous satellite populations around SMC and LMC-mass galaxies - A missing satellite problem around the LMC?
• Ultrafaint Dwarf Galaxies - the lowest mass relics from before reionization
• A Common Origin for Globular Clusters and Ultra-faint Dwarfs in Simulations of the First Galaxies
• Stealth Galaxies in the Halo of the Milky Way
• Dissecting the Evolution of Dark Matter Subhaloes in the Bolshoi Simulation
• Closing in on Resonantly Produced Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
• No Assembly Required: Mergers are Mostly Irrelevant for the Growth of Low-mass Dwarf Galaxies
• The effect of a disc on the population of cuspy and cored dark matter substructures in Milky Way-like galaxies
• The Galaxy Clustering Crisis in Abundance Matching
• Evidence of a non universal stellar Initial Mass Function. Insights from HST optical imaging of 6 Ultra Faint Dwarf Milky Way Satellites
• The Orbital Ellipticity of Satellite Galaxies and the Mass of the Milky Way
• The imprint of cosmic reionisation on the luminosity function of galaxies
• Luminous Satellites of Early-Type Galaxies I: Spatial Distribution
• Suppression of Star Formation in Low-Mass Galaxies Caused by the Reionization of their Local Neighborhood
• Properties of Local Group galaxies in hydrodynamical simulations of sterile neutrino dark matter cosmologies
• Composite Dark Matter and Puzzles of Dark Matter Searches
• An observer's guide to the (Local Group) dwarf galaxies: predictions for their own dwarf satellite populations
• The Effects of Patchy Reionization on Satellite Galaxies of the Milky Way
• Modelling Galaxy Merger Timescales and Tidal Destruction
• The Inhomogeneous Reionization Times of Present-day Galaxies
• Simulations of galaxies formed in warm dark matter halos of masses at the filtering scale
• Reionisation in sterile neutrino cosmologies
• Reionization of the Milky Way, M31, and their satellites I: reionization history and star formation

Cited by in corpus (166)

• The Faintest Dwarf Galaxies
• The Neutrino Puzzle: Anomalies, Interactions, and Cosmological Tensions
• Milky Way Satellite Census. III. Constraints on Dark Matter Properties from Observations of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies
• Warm dark matter chills out: constraints on the halo mass function and the free-streaming length of dark matter with 8 quadruple-image strong gravitational lenses
• Dark matter heats up in dwarf galaxies
• Milky Way Satellite Census. II. Galaxy--Halo Connection Constraints Including the Impact of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Revisiting a negative cosmological constant from low-redshift data
• Milky Way Satellite Census. I. The Observational Selection Function for Milky Way Satellites in DES Y3 and Pan-STARRS DR1
• Gravitational probes of dark matter physics
• Ultra-faint dwarfs in a Milky Way context: Introducing the Mint Condition DC Justice League Simulations
• From galactic bars to the Hubble tension: weighing up the astrophysical evidence for Milgromian gravity
• Phat ELVIS: The inevitable effect of the Milky Way's disk on its dark matter subhaloes
• A profile in FIRE: resolving the radial distributions of satellite galaxies in the Local Group with simulations
• Probing dark matter structure down to $10^7$ solar masses: flux ratio statistics in gravitational lenses with line of sight halos
• Joint constraints on thermal relic dark matter from strong gravitational lensing, the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest, and Milky Way satellites
• The DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey: Overview and First Data Release
• Dark Matter Constraints from a Unified Analysis of Strong Gravitational Lenses and Milky Way Satellite Galaxies
• The faint end of the Centaurus A satellite luminosity function
• Galaxy Formation with BECDM -- II. Cosmic Filaments and First Galaxies
• Dark matters on the scale of galaxies
• Wide-Field Survey of Dwarf Satellite Systems Around 10 Hosts in the Local Volume
• NuSTAR Tests of Sterile-Neutrino Dark Matter: New Galactic Bulge Observations and Combined Impact
• The M101 Satellite Luminosity Function and the Halo to Halo Scatter Among Local Volume Hosts
• Two Ultra-Faint Milky Way Stellar Systems Discovered in Early Data from the DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey
• Quantifying scatter in galaxy formation at the lowest masses
• Going, going, gone dark: Quantifying the scatter in the faintest dwarf galaxies
• Evaporating the Milky Way halo and its satellites with inelastic self-interacting dark matter
• Evidence of a population of dark subhalos from Gaia and Pan-STARRS observations of the GD-1 stream
• Determining the full satellite population of a Milky Way-mass halo in a highly resolved cosmological hydrodynamic simulation
• Abundance matching with the mean star formation rate: there is no missing satellites problem in the Milky Way above ${\mathbf{M}}_{200}\sim 10^9{\mathbf{M}}_{\odot }$
• Diversity in density profiles of self-interacting dark matter satellite halos
• Core-collapse, evaporation and tidal effects: the life story of a self-interacting dark matter subhalo
• Modeling the Connection Between Subhalos and Satellites in Milky Way-like Systems
• Discovery of a red ultra-diffuse galaxy in a nearby void based on its globular cluster luminosity function
• Broken into Pieces: ATLAS and Aliqa Uma as One Single Stream
• Observational constraints on stellar feedback in dwarf galaxies
• Probing the nature of dark matter by forward modeling flux ratios in strong gravitational lenses
• A Thermal Neutrino Portal to Sub-MeV Dark Matter
• Modeling the Impact of Baryons on Subhalo Populations with Machine Learning
• The distribution and morphologies of Fornax Cluster dwarf galaxies suggest they lack dark matter
• Double dark matter vision: twice the number of compact-source lenses with narrow-line lensing and the WFC3 grism
• Bounds on velocity-dependent dark matter-proton scattering from Milky Way satellite abundance
• Luminosity Functions and Host-to-Host Scatter of Dwarf Satellite Systems in the Local Volume
• New Constraints on the Mass of Fermionic Dark Matter from Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
• Structure Formation Models Weaken Limits on WIMP Dark Matter from Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
• Can cosmological simulations capture the diverse satellite populations of observed Milky Way analogues?
• How low does it go? Too few Galactic satellites with standard reionization quenching
• XENON1T Anomaly and its Implication for Decaying Warm Dark Matter
• Glueball scattering cross section in lattice SU(2) Yang-Mills theory
• The Dragonfly Wide Field Survey. I. Telescope, Survey Design and Data Characterization
• ETHOS -- an effective theory of structure formation: predictions for the high-redshift Universe -- abundance of galaxies and reionization
• Radial Distributions of Dwarf Satellite Systems in the Local Volume
• Motivations for a Large Self-Interacting Dark Matter Cross Section from Milky Way Satellites
• The little things matter: relating the abundance of ultrafaint satellites to the hosts' assembly history
• TangoSIDM: Tantalizing models of Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• The LBT Satellites of Nearby Galaxies Survey (LBT-SONG): The Satellite Population of NGC 628
• Streams on FIRE: Populations of Detectable Stellar Streams in the Milky Way and FIRE
• The velocity anisotropy of the Milky Way satellite system
• Deep Learning the Morphology of Dark Matter Substructure
• Small-scale shear: Peeling off diffuse subhalos with gravitational waves
• Implications of Milky Way Substructures for the Nature of Dark Matter
• Dark Matter microphysics and 21 cm observations
• Constraints on warm dark matter from UV luminosity functions of high-z galaxies with Bayesian model comparison
• Dark matter scattering cross section and dynamics in dark Yang-Mills theory
• Dark atoms and composite dark matter
• Direct Detection of Dark Matter -- APPEC Committee Report
• N-body simulations of dark matter with frequent self-interactions
• Multifield Ultralight Dark Matter
• Gravitational imaging through a triple source plane lens: revisiting the $\Lambda$CDM-defying dark subhalo in SDSSJ0946+1006
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Two Faint Dwarf Satellites of Nearby LMC Analogs from MADCASH
• Feebly Interacting $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{B}-\mathrm{L}}$ Gauge Boson Warm Dark Matter and XENON1T Anomaly
• Probing sub-galactic mass structure with the power spectrum of surface-brightness anomalies in high-resolution observations of galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lenses. II.Observational constraints on the sub-galactic matter power spectrum
• ETHOS - an Effective Theory of Structure Formation: detecting dark matter interactions through the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest
• The Signatures of Self-Interacting Dark Matter and Subhalo Disruption on Cluster Substructure
• Tidal destruction in a low mass galaxy environment: the discovery of tidal tails around DDO 44
• Constraining SIDM with halo shapes: revisited predictions from realistic simulations of early-type galaxies
• Predictably Missing Satellites: Subhalo Abundance in Milky Way-like Halos
• Constraints on the epoch of dark matter formation from Milky Way satellites
• Pegasus V -- a newly discovered ultra-faint dwarf galaxy on the outskirts of Andromeda
• Globular Cluster Formation from Colliding Substructure
• Dark Disk Substructure and Superfluid Dark Matter
• Degenerate Sub-keV Fermion Dark Matter from a Solution to the Hubble Tension
• Axions: From Magnetars and Neutron Star Mergers to Beam Dumps and BECs
• ETHOS -- An effective parametrization and classification for structure formation: the non-linear regime at $z\gtrsim 5$
• Radial velocities and stellar population properties of 56 MATLAS dwarf galaxies observed with MUSE
• Extreme $\ell$-boson stars
• Endothermic self-interacting dark matter in Milky Way-like dark matter haloes
• The Very Knotty Lenser: exploring the role of regularization in source and potential reconstructions using Gaussian Process Regression
• A new calibration method of sub-halo orbital evolution for semi-analytic models
• Decaying dark matter in dwarf spheroidal galaxies: Prospects for X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes
• Cosmological constraints on the Multi Scalar Field Dark Matter model
• A Search for Satellite Galaxies of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies with Resolved Stars in LBT-SONG
• Bayesian analysis for rotational curves with $\ell$-boson stars as a dark matter component
• The PAndAS View of the Andromeda Satellite System. IV Global properties
• Astrophysical Tests of Dark Matter Self-Interactions
• Tidal evolution of cored and cuspy dark matter halos
• The PAndAS View of the Andromeda Satellite System. III. Dwarf galaxy detection limits
• The Missing Satellite Problem Outside of the Local Group. II. Statistical Properties of Satellites of Milky Way-like Galaxies
• On The Nature of ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Candidates II: The case of Cetus II
• The effect of dark matter-dark radiation interactions on halo abundance -- a Press-Schechter approach
• Introducing the AIDA-TNG project: galaxy formation in alternative dark matter models
• The AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. V: Satellite Galaxy Populations In A Cosmological Zoom-in Simulation of A Milky Way-mass Halo
• A Model of Interacting Dark Matter and Dark Radiation for $H_0$ and ${\sigma }_8$ Tensions
• $\gamma$-ray and $\nu$ searches for dark matter subhalos in the Milky Way with a baryonic potential
• TeV Dark Matter Searches in the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Sky
• The Milky Way, Coming into Focus: Precision Astrometry Probes its Evolution, and its Dark Matter
• Decoding Dark Matter Substructure without Supervision
• COZMIC. I. Cosmological Zoom-in Simulations with Initial Conditions Beyond Cold Dark Matter
• Illuminating the Darkest Galaxies
• The Luminosity Functions and Redshift Evolution of Satellites of Low-Mass Galaxies in the COSMOS Survey
• Charged Dark Matter and the $H_0$ tension
• Fitting a Self-Interacting Dark Matter Model to Data Ranging From Satellite Galaxies to Galaxy Clusters
• Degeneracies between baryons and dark matter: the challenge of constraining the nature of dark matter with JWST
• Cosmological constraints on the velocity-dependent baryon-dark matter coupling
• Scaling relations for dark matter core density and radius from Chandra X-ray cluster sample
• Decaying axinolike dark matter: Discriminative solution to small-scale issues
• Degenerate Fermion Dark Matter from a Broken $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{B}-\mathrm{L}}$ Gauge Symmetry
• Searching for Dark Matter Sub-structure with HAWC
• LMC-driven anisotropic boosts in stream--subhalo interactions
• Constraints on dark matter self-interaction from galactic core size
• Scalar dark matter vortex stabilization with black holes
• Subhalo effective density slope measurements from HST strong lensing data with neural likelihood-ratio estimation
• Auriga Streams I: disrupting satellites surrounding Milky Way-mass haloes at multiple resolutions
• Discovery prospects of dwarf spheroidal galaxies for indirect dark matter searches
• An Extra-Dimensional Model of Dark Matter
• The Effect of Multiple Cooling Channels on the Formation of Dark Compact Objects
• Inferring subhalo effective density slopes from strong lensing observations with neural likelihood-ratio estimation
• Cosmic Reionization On Computers: Reionization Histories of Present-day Galaxies
• Pushing the Limits of Detectability: Mixed Dark Matter from Strong Gravitational Lenses
• Axisymmetric Schwarzschild models of an isothermal axisymmetric mock dwarf spheroidal galaxy
• The feasibility of constraining DM interactions with high-redshift observations by JWST
• Anticipating the XRISM search for the decay of resonantly produced sterile neutrino dark matter
• Dark Matter-Induced Baryonic Feedback in Galaxies
• Trial by FIRE: Probing the dark matter density profile of dwarf galaxies with GraphNPE
• New constraints on sterile neutrino dark matter from the Galactic Center
• The Hierarchical Structure of Galactic Haloes: Classification and characterisation with Halo-OPTICS
• Dark sector domain walls could explain the observed planes of satellites
• Primordial black holes save $R^2$ inflation
• Modeling HF-QPOs in Microquasars and AGNs: Charged Particles around Black Holes with CDM Halos
• Stochastic dark matter: Covariant Brownian motion from Planckian discreteness
• Warm and Cold Dark Matter in Bouncing Universe
• Kinetic recoupling of dark matter
• Born to be Starless: Revisiting the Missing Satellite Problem
• Properties of subhalos in the interacting dark matter scenario
• Halo heating from fluctuating gas in a model dwarf
• Investigating the collinear splitting effects of boosted dark matter at neutrino detectors
• Segue 2 Recently Collided with the Cetus-Palca Stream: New Opportunities to Constrain Dark Matter in an Ultra-Faint Dwarf
• The Upper Bound of the Second Higgs Boson Mass in Minimal Gauge Mediation with the Gravitino Warm Dark Matter
• DELVE Milky Way Satellite Galaxy Census I: Satellite Population and Survey Selection Function in DES, DELVE, and Pan-STARRS
• The AIDA-TNG project: dark matter profiles and concentrations in alternative dark matter models
• Cross Section Calculations in Theories of Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Magellan/IMACS spectroscopy of Grus I: A low metallicity ultra-faint dwarf galaxy
• Accelerated expansion as manifestation of gravity: when Dark Energy belongs to the left
• Near-Field Cosmology with the Lowest-Mass Galaxies
• Addressing the too-big-to-fail problem and the void phenomenon through a modified initial power spectrum
• Structure Formation under Inelastic Two-Component Dark Matter: Halo Statistics and Matter Power Spectra in the High-$z$ Universe
• Galactic magnetic fields seeded by ultralight dark photons
• Forward-modelling the Luminosity, Distance, and Size distributions of the Milky Way Satellites
• Newtonian Gravity and Galaxy Rotation Curves: An Axisymmetric Green's Function Perspective
• Milky Way Satellite Census. IV. Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from Observations of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies
• Oscillating scalar field as dark matter through the cosmological epochs
• The Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) Survey: A Nearly Volume-Limited Sample of Nearby Dwarf Satellite Systems
• Uncertainties in measuring the dark matter signal from Milky Way satellites using Cherenkov telescopes
• Testing subhalo abundance matching with galaxy kinematics
• Extending the SAGA Survey (xSAGA) I: Satellite Radial Profiles as a Function of Host Galaxy Properties
• ALMA Measurement of 10 kpc-scale Lensing Power Spectra towards the Lensed Quasar MG J0414+0534