Gravitational Lensing by Cold Dark Matter Catastrophes

Abstract

Intrinsically cold particle dark matter inevitably creates halos with sharp discontinuities in projected surface density caused by the projection of fold catastrophes onto the sky. In principle, these imperfections can be detected and measured with gravitational lensing through discontinuities in image magnification and image structure. Lens solutions are discussed for the most common universal classes of discontinuities. Edges caused by cold particles such as condensed axions and thermal WIMPs are very sharp, respectively about $10^{-12}$ and $10^{-7}$ of the halo scale. Their structure can be resolved by stellar and quasi-stellar sources which show sudden changes in brightness or even sudden disappearances (sometimes within hours) as edges are crossed. Images of extended objects such as edge-on galaxies or jets can show sudden bends at an edge, or stretched, parity-inverted reflection symmetry about a sharp line. Observational strategies and prospects are briefly discussed.

9 pages, AASTeX. Final version, with explanatory figure added, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (4)

• Resolving the Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• Dark Matter Halos within Clusters
• Caustic rings of dark matter
• The caustic ring singularity

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Halo Cores and Phase Space Densities: Observational Constraints on Dark Matter Physics and Structure Formation
• The Caustic Ring Model of the Milky Way Halo
• Evidence for Ring Caustics in the Milky Way
• Caustics in growing Cold Dark Matter Haloes
• Black Hole-Neutron Star Binaries in General Relativity: Quasiequilibrium Formulation
• Particle Annihilation in Cold Dark Matter Micropancakes
• Robustness of Discrete Flows and Caustics in Cold Dark Matter Cosmology
• Does the Second Caustic Ring of Dark Matter Cause the Monoceros Ring of Stars ?
• Gravitational Lensing by Dark Matter Caustics
• Gravitational Lensing and Structural Stability of Dark Matter Caustic Rings
• Dark Matter Caustics in Galaxy Clusters
• Caustics, cold flows, and annual modulation
• Probing Cold Dark Matter Cusps by Gravitational Lensing