Constraining Ultra Light Dark Matter with the Galactic Nuclear Star Cluster
arXiv:2106.02526 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stac057
Abstract
We use the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster (NSC) to test the existence of a dark matter 'soliton core', as predicted in ultra-light dark matter (ULDM) models. Since the soliton core size is proportional to mDM^{-1}, while the core density grows as mDM^{2}, the NSC (dominant stellar component within about 3 pc) is sensitive to a specific window in the dark matter particle mass, mDM. We apply a spherical isotropic Jeans model to fit the NSC line-of-sight velocity dispersion data, assuming priors on the precisely measured Milky Way's supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass and the well-measured NSC density profile. We find that the current observational data reject the existence of a soliton core for a single ULDM particle with mass in the range 10^{-20.4} < mDM < 10^{-18.5} eV, assuming that the soliton core structure is not affected by the Milky Way's SMBH. We test our methodology on mock data, confirming that we are sensitive to the same range in ULDM mass as for the real data. Dynamical modelling of a larger region of the Galactic centre, including the nuclear stellar disc, promises tighter constraints over a broader range of mDM. We will consider this in future work.
16 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
References in corpus (16)
- Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter
- The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way
- Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
- Understanding the Core-Halo Relation of Quantum Wave Dark Matter, DM, from 3D Simulations
- Milky Way Satellite Census. III. Constraints on Dark Matter Properties from Observations of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies
- Tango for three: Sagittarius, LMC, and the Milky Way
- Lyman-alpha Constraints on Ultralight Scalar Dark Matter: Implications for the Early and Late Universe
- Ultra Light Boson Dark Matter and Event Horizon Telescope Observations of M87*
- The old nuclear star cluster in the Milky Way: dynamics, mass, statistical parallax, and black hole mass
- Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way Satellites
- Triaxial orbit-based modelling of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster
- Ultra-light dark matter in disk galaxies
- Narrowing the mass range of Fuzzy Dark Matter with Ultra-faint Dwarfs
- New constraints on the structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way from star counts and MIR imaging
- The MUSE-Faint survey. II. The dark matter-density profile of the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Eridanus 2
- Testing the Prediction of Fuzzy Dark Matter Theory in the Milky Way Center