Self-Interacting Dark Matter and Small-Scale Gravitational Lenses in Galaxy Clusters

Abstract

Recently, Meneghetti et al. reported an excess of small-scale gravitational lenses in galaxy clusters. We study its implications for self-interacting dark matter (SIDM), compared with standard cold dark matter (CDM). We design controlled N-body simulations that incorporate observational constraints. The presence of early-type galaxies in cluster substructures can deepen gravitational potential and reduce tidal mass loss. Both scenarios require a relatively high baryon concentration in the substructure to accommodate the lensing measurements, and their tangential caustics are similar. The SIDM substructure can experience gravothermal collapse and produce a steeper density profile than its CDM counterpart, leading to a larger radial galaxy-galaxy strong lensing cross section, although this effect is hard to observe. Our results indicate SIDM can provide a unified explanation to small-scale lenses in galaxy clusters and stellar motions in dwarf galaxies.

7 pages, 3 figures; minor updates on text, published version

References in corpus (15)

• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• Disruption of Dark Matter Substructure: Fact or Fiction?
• Dark Matter Substructure in Numerical Simulations: A Tale of Discreteness Noise, Runaway Instabilities, and Artificial Disruption
• Cluster Lenses
• CLASH: The Concentration-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters
• CLASH-VLT: Insights on the mass substructures in the Frontier Fields Cluster MACS J0416.1-2403 through accurate strong lens modeling
• An excess of small-scale gravitational lenses observed in galaxy clusters
• Supermassive Black Holes from Ultra-Strongly Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• SIDM on FIRE: Hydrodynamical Self-Interacting Dark Matter simulations of low-mass dwarf galaxies
• Mass distribution in the core of MACS J1206: robust modeling from an exceptionally large sample of central multiple images
• The central densities of Milky Way-mass galaxies in cold and self-interacting dark matter models
• On the density profile of dark matter substructure in gravitational lens galaxies
• Mass profile decomposition of the Frontier Fields cluster MACS J0416-02403. Insights on the Dark-Matter inner profile
• Numerical simulations challenged on the prediction of massive subhalo abundance in galaxy clusters: the case of Abell 2142
• The galaxy-galaxy strong lensing cross-sections of simulated LCDM galaxy clusters

Cited by in corpus (33)

• Gravothermal evolution of dark matter halos with differential elastic scattering
• A Self-interacting Dark Matter Solution to the Extreme Diversity of Low-mass Halo Properties
• Strong Dark Matter Self-interactions Diversify Halo Populations within and surrounding the Milky Way
• Constraining resonant dark matter self-interactions with strong gravitational lenses
• A persistent excess of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing observed in galaxy clusters
• The impact of baryonic potentials on the gravothermal evolution of self-interacting dark matter haloes
• A Parametric Model for Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
• Dynamical Instability of Collapsed Dark Matter Halos
• Dianoga SIDM: galaxy cluster self-interacting dark matter simulations
• Astrophysical Tests of Dark Matter Self-Interactions
• Introducing the AIDA-TNG project: galaxy formation in alternative dark matter models
• Numerical Challenges in Modeling Gravothermal Collapse in Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
• Dark Stars Powered by Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Numerical challenges for energy conservation in N-body simulations of collapsing self-interacting dark matter halos
• Self-Interacting Dark Matter, Core Collapse and the Galaxy-Galaxy Strong Lensing Discrepancy
• Gravothermal collapse and the diversity of galactic rotation curves
• Enhanced Early Galaxy Formation in JWST from Axion Dark Matter?
• Discriminating power of milli-lensing observations for dark matter models
• SIDM Concerto: Compilation and Data Release of Self-interacting Dark Matter Zoom-in Simulations
• SASHIMI-SIDM: Semi-analytical subhalo modelling for self-interacting dark matter at sub-galactic scales
• Exploring Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos with Diverse Baryonic Distributions: A Parametric Approach
• Subhalo effective density slope measurements from HST strong lensing data with neural likelihood-ratio estimation
• Gravothermal Catastrophe in Resonant Self-interacting Dark Matter Models
• Accurate Measurement of the Lensing Magnification by BOSS CMASS Galaxies and Its Implications for Cosmology and Dark Matter
• Exotic Image Formation in Strong Gravitational Lensing by Clusters of Galaxies -- IV. Elliptical NFW Lenses and Hyperbolic Umbilics
• COZMIC. III. Cosmological Zoom-in Simulations of Self-interacting Dark Matter with Suppressed Initial Conditions
• The Three Hundred: $M_{sub}-V_{circ}$ relation
• A Universal Analytic Model for Gravitational Lensing by Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
• New Cold Dark Matter Crisis Revealed by Multiscale Cluster Lensing
• Kinetic recoupling of dark matter
• Self-Interacting Dark Matter with Mass Segregation: A Unified Explanation of Dwarf Cores and Small-Scale Lenses
• Constraining the Nature of Dark Matter from Tidal Radii of Cluster Galaxy Subhalos
• Galaxies in the central regions of simulated galaxy clusters