We study the effects of substructure in the Galactic halo on direct detection of dark matter, on searches for energetic neutrinos from WIMP annihilation in the Sun and Earth, and on the enhancement in the WIMP annihilation rate in the halo. Our central result is a probability distribution function (PDF) P(ρ) for the local dark-matter density. This distribution must be taken into account when using null dark-matter searches to constrain the properties of dark-matter candidates. We take two approaches to calculating the PDF. The first is an analytic model that capitalizes on the scale-invariant nature of the structure--formation hierarchy in order to address early stages in the hierarchy (very small scales; high densities). Our second approach uses simulation-inspired results to describe the PDF that arises from lower-density larger-scale substructures which formed in more recent stages in the merger hierarchy. The distributions are skew positive, and they peak at densities lower than the mean density. The local dark-matter density may be as small as 1/10th the canonical value of ~ 0.4 GeV/cm^3, but it is probably no less than 0.2 GeV/cm^3.
One of the targets of the recently launched Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a diffuse gamma-ray background from dark-matter annihilation or decay in the Galactic halo. N-body simulations and theoretical arguments suggest that the dark matter in the Galactic halo may be clumped into substructure, rather than smoothly distributed. Here we propose the gamma-ray-flux probability distribution function (PDF) as a probe of substructure in the Galactic halo. We calculate this PDF for a phenomenological model of halo substructure and determine the regions of the substructure parameter space in which…
The amount of mass in small, dark matter clumps within galaxies (substructure) is an important test of cold dark matter. One approach to measuring the substructure mass fraction is to analyze the fluxes of images that have been strongly lensed by a galaxy. Flux ratios between images that are anomalous with respect to smooth (no substructure) models have previously suggested that there is a greater amount of substructure than found in dark matter simulations. One measure of anomalous flux ratios is parity dependence -- that the fluxes of different images of a source are perturbed differently. I…
It is a clear unique prediction of the cold dark matter paradigm of cosmological structure formation that galaxies form hierarchically and are embedded in massive, extended dark halos teeming with self-bound substructure or "subhalos". The amount and spatial distribution of subhalos around their host provide unique information and clues on the galaxy assembly process and the nature of the dark matter. Here we present results from the Via Lactea INCITE simulation, a one billion particle, one million cpu-hour simulation of the formation and evolution of a Galactic dark matter halo and its substr…
We performed cosmological simulations based upon both a cold dark matter (CDM) and a warm dark matter (WDM) model. The focus of our investigations lies with selected spatial and kinematic properties of substructure halos (subhalos) orbiting within host halos, that form in both dark-matter cosmologies. We aim at using the dynamics of the subhalos as a probe of the respective cosmology.
We use numerical simulations to examine the substructure within galactic and cluster mass halos that form within a hierarchical universe. Clusters are easily reproduced with a steep mass spectrum of thousands of substructure clumps that closely matches observations. However, the survival of dark matter substructure also occurs on galactic scales, leading to the remarkable result that galaxy halos appear as scaled versions of galaxy clusters. The model predicts that the virialised extent of the Milky Way's halo should contain about 500 satellites with circular velocities larger than Draco and U…
High-resolution cosmological N-body simulations were performed in order to study the substructure of Milky Way-like galactic halos and the density profiles of halos in a warm dark matter scenario. The results favor this scenario with respect to the cold dark matter one.
Hierarchical clustering models of cold dark matter (CDM) predict that about 5% - 10% of a galaxy-sized halo with mass ~ 10^12 solar masses (M_sun) resides in substructures (CDM subhalos) with masses <= 10^8 M_sun. To directly identify such substructures, we propose to observe radio continuum emission from multiply imaged QSOs using VSOP-2 with a high angular resolution.
The majority of gamma-ray emission from Galactic dark matter annihilation is likely to be detected as a contribution to the diffuse gamma-ray background. I show that dark matter substructure in the halo of the Galaxy induces characteristic anisotropies in the diffuse background that could be used to determine the small-scale dark matter distribution. I calculate the angular power spectrum of the emission from dark matter substructure for several models of the subhalo population, and show that features in the power spectrum can be used to infer the presence of substructure. The shape of the pow…
We construct a realistic model for the dark halo substructures, and derive analytically their spatial, mass, and velocity distributions. Basically, our model is a modification of the Press-Schechter theory to account for the dominant dynamical processes that mark the evolution of dark halo substructures such as the tidal stripping and dynamical friction. Our analytic model successfully reproduces all the well known behaviors of the substructure distributions that have been found in recent numerical simulations: the weak dependence of the mass distributions on the host halo mass; the anti-bias …
To set useful limits on the abundance of small-scale dark matter halos (subhalos) in a galaxy scale, we have carried out mid-infrared imaging and integral-field spectroscopy for a sample of quadruple lens systems showing anomalous flux ratios. These observations using Subaru have been successful for distinguishing millilensing by subhalos from microlensing by stars. Current status for our lensing analysis of dark matter substructure is reported.
We investigate the intrinsic alignments of dark halo substructures with their host halo major-axis orientations both analytically and numerically. Analytically, we derive the probability density distribution of the angles between the minor axes of the substructures and the major axes of their host halos from the physical principles, under the assumption that the substructure alignment on galaxy scale is a consequence of the tidal fields of the host halo gravitational potential. Numerically, we use a sample of four cluster-scale halos and their galaxy-scale substructures from recent high-resolu…
Models of structure formation based on cold dark matter predict that most of the small dark matter haloes that first formed at high redshift would have merged into larger systems by the present epoch. Substructure in present-day haloes preserves the remains of these ancient systems, providing the only direct information we may ever have about the low-mass end of the power spectrum. I describe some recent attempts to model halo substructure down to very small masses, using a semi-analytic model of halo formation. I make a preliminary comparison between the model predictions, observations of sub…
The concordance Cold Dark Matter model for the formation of structure in the Universe, while remarkably successful at describing observations on large scales, has a number of problems on galaxy scales. The Milky Way and its satellite system provide a key laboratory for exploring dark matter (DM) in this regime, but some of the most definitive tests of local DM await microarcsecond astrometry, such as will be delivered by the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM Planetquest). I discuss several tests of Galactic DM enabled by future microarcsecond astrometry.
We discuss the possibility of GLAST detecting gamma-rays from the annihilation of neutralino dark matter in the Galactic halo. We have used "Via Lactea", currently the highest resolution simulation of Galactic cold dark matter substructure, to quantify the contribution of subhalos to the annihilation signal. We present a simulated allsky map of the expected gamma-ray counts from dark matter annihilation, assuming standard values of particle mass and cross section. In this case GLAST should be able to detect the Galactic center and several individual subhalos.
I argue that the cold dark matter (CDM) model requires that even within a few kpc of the center of a galactic halo a significant fraction (greater than a few percent) of the surface density is contained in substructures with masses > 10^3 solar masses. These structures should be light enough to avoid dynamical friction and dense enough to avoid tidal disruption. I then show using the results of numerical simulations that this substructure will significantly alter the flux ratios of multiply imaged quasars (QSOs) without changing the image positions. The degree to which this occurs will depend …
Annihilation of Dark Matter usually produces together with gamma rays comparable amounts of electrons and positrons. The e+e- gyrating in the galactic magnetic field then produce secondary synchrotron radiation which thus provides an indirect mean to constrain the DM signal itself. To this purpose, we calculate the radio emission from the galactic halo as well as from its expected substructures and we then compare it with the measured diffuse radio background. We employ a multi-frequency approach using data in the relevant frequency range 100 MHz-100 GHz, as well as the WMAP Haze data at 23 GH…
We develop an algorithm to reconstruct the triaxial shapes of dark matter halos from the anisotropic spatial distributions of their substructures for the concordance background cosmology. First, we construct an analytic model for the anisotropic spatial distribution of dark halo substructures under the assumption that the tidal field with non-zero trace in the triaxial mass distribution of the host halos generates the substructure bulk motions toward the major principal axes of the hosts. Our analytic model implies that the degree of anisotropy depends sensitively on the triaxiality of the hos…
Multiresolution analysis is applied to the problem of halo identification in cosmological N-body simulations. The procedure makes use of a discrete wavelet transform known as the algorithme a trous and segmentation analysis. It has the ability to find subhalos in the dense regions of a parent halo and can discern the multiple levels of substructure expected in the hierarchical clustering scenario. As an illustration, a 500,000 particle dark matter halo is analyzed and over 600 subhalos are found. Statistical properties of the subhalo population are discussed.
The existence of dark matter can be proved in an astrophysical context by the discovery of a system in which the observed baryons and the inferred dark matter are spatially segregated, such as the bullet cluster (1E0657-558). The full descriptions of the dark matter halo and X-ray gas substructure motions are necessary to forecast the location of the dark halo from X-ray maps, which can be confirmed by the detection of a galaxy concentration or by gravitational lensing. We present an analytical hydrodynamic model to determine the distance between the X-ray and dark-matter components and the Ma…
In this proceeding, we briefly review three recent results. First, we show that halos formed in simulations with gas cooling are significantly rounder than halos formed in dissipationless $N$-body simulations. The increase in principle axis ratios is $δ(c/a) ~ 0.2 - 0.4$ in the inner halo and remains significant at large radii. Second, we discuss the CDM substructure crisis and demonstrate the sensitivity of the crisis to the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations on small scales. Third, we assess the ability of experiments like VERITAS and GLAST to detect $γ$-rays from neutralino dark ma…
In this paper we calculate the Galactic positron flux from dark matter annihilation in the frame of supersymmetry, taking the enhancement of the flux by existence of dark matter substructures into account. The propagation of positrons in the Galactic magnetic field is solved in a realistic numerical model GALPROP. The secondary positron flux is recalculated in the GLAPROP model. The total positron flux from secondary products and dark matter annihilation can fit the HEAT data well when taking a cuspy density profile of the substructures.
Multiply-imaged quasar lenses can be used to constrain the substructure mass fraction in galaxy-sized dark matter halos via anomalous flux ratios in lensed images. The flux ratios, however, can be affected by both the substructure in the lens halo and by isolated small-mass halos along the entire line-of-sight to the lensed source. While lensing by dark matter clumps near the lens galaxy is more efficient than elsewhere, the cumulative effect of all objects along the line-of-sight could be significant. Here we estimate the potential contribution of isolated clumps to the substructure lensing s…
We analyse the properties of substructures within dark matter halos (subhalos) using a set of high-resolution numerical simulations of the formation of structure in a Lambda-CDM Universe. Our simulation set includes 11 high-resolution simulations of massive clusters as well as a region of mean density, allowing us to study the spatial and mass distribution of substructures down to a mass resolution limit of 10^9 h^(-1)Mo. We also investigate how the properties of substructures vary as a function of the mass of the `parent' halo in which they are located. We find that the substructure mass func…
The Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model for galaxy formation predicts that a significant fraction of mass in the dark matter haloes that surround L L* galaxies is bound in substructures of mass 1E4-1E7Msun. The number of observable baryonic substructures (such as dwarf galaxies and globular clusters) falls short of these predictions by at least an order of magnitude. We present a method for searching for substructure in the haloes of gravitational lenses that produce multiple images of QSOs, such as 4-image Einstein Cross lenses. Current methods based on broadband flux ratios cannot cleanly distingui…
I develop a model for the abundance and spatial distribution of dark matter subclumps. The model shows that subclumps of massive parent halos formed at earlier times than subclumps of the same mass in lower mass parents; equivalently, halos in dense regions at a given time formed earlier than halos of the same mass in less dense regions. This may provide the basis for interpreting recent observations which indicate that the stellar populations of the most massive elliptical galaxies are also the oldest.
We propose the novel method of ``gravitational imaging'' to detect and quantify luminous and dark-matter substructure in gravitational-lens galaxies. The method utilizes highly-magnified Einstein rings and arcs as sensitive probes of small perturbations in the lens potential (due to the presence of mass substructure), reconstructing the gravitational lens potential non-parametrically. Numerical simulations show that the implemented algorithm can reconstruct the smooth mass distribution of a typical lens galaxy - exhibiting reasonable signal-to-noise Einstein rings - as well as compact substruc…
(Abridged) We conduct a series of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations to investigate the cumulative effect of substructure mergers onto thin disk galaxies in the context of the LCDM paradigm of structure formation. Our simulation campaign is based on a hybrid approach. Substructure properties are culled directly from cosmological simulations of galaxy-sized cold dark matter (CDM) halos. In contrast to what can be inferred from statistics of the present-day substructure populations, accretions of massive subhalos onto the central regions of host halos, where the galactic disk re…
We estimate the two-point correlation function of dark matter haloes, with masses >10^{13} h^{-1} Mo, that have or not significant substructure. The haloes are identified with a friends of friends algorithm in a large LCDM simulation at two redshift snapshots (z=0 and 1), while halo substructure is determined using an observationally driven method. We find in both epochs a clear and significant signal by which haloes with substructure are more clustered than those with no-substructure. This is true for all the considered halo mass ranges, although for the highest halo masses the signal is nois…
We explore the effect of substructure in dark matter halos on the power spectrum and bispectrum of matter fluctuations and weak lensing shear. By experimenting with substructure in a cosmological N = 512^3 simulation, we find that when a larger fraction of the host halo mass is in subhalos, the resulting power spectrum has less power at 1 < k < 100 h Mpc^{-1} and more power at k > 100 h Mpc^{-1}. We explain this effect using an analytic halo model including subhalos, which shows that the 1 < k < 100 h Mpc^{-1} regime depends sensitively on the radial distribution of subhalo centers while the i…
We present distributions of the orbital parameters of dark matter substructures at the time of merging into their host halo. Accurate knowledge of the orbits of dark matter substructures is a crucial input to studies which aim to assess the effects of the cluster environment on galaxies, the heating of galaxy disks and many other topics. Orbits are measured for satellites in a large number of N-body simulations. We focus on the distribution of radial and tangential velocities, but consider also distributions of orbital eccentricity and semi-major axis. We show that the distribution of radial a…
We show that dark matter substructure in galaxy-scale halos perturbs the time delays between images in strong gravitational lens systems. The variance of the effect depends on the subhalo mass function, scaling as the product of the substructure mass fraction and a characteristic mass of subhalos (namely <m^2>/<m>). Time delay perturbations therefore complement gravitational lens flux ratio anomalies and astrometric perturbations by measuring a different moment of the subhalo mass function. Unlike flux ratio anomalies, "time delay millilensing" is unaffected by dust extinction or stellar micro…
We demonstrate that pulsar timing measurements may potentially be able to detect the presence of dark matter substructure within our own galaxy. As dark matter substructure transits near the line-of-sight between a pulsar and an observer, the change in the gravitational field will result in a delay of the light-travel-time of photons. We calculate the effect of this delay due to transiting dark matter substructure and find that the effect on pulsar timing ought to be observable over decadal timescales for a wide range of substructure masses and density profiles. We find that transiting dark ma…
We demonstrate that the flux ratios of 4-image lensed quasars provide a powerful means of probing the small scale structure of Dark Matter (DM) halos. A family of smooth lens models can precisely predict certain combinations of flux ratios using only the positions of the images and lens as inputs. Using 5 observed lens systems we show that real galaxies {\it cannot} be described by smooth singular isothermal ellipsoids, nor by the more general elliptical power-law potentials. Large scale distortions from the elliptical models can not yet be ruled out. Nevertheless we find, by comparing with si…
We run numerical simulations of the disruption of satellite galaxies in a Galactic potential to build up the entire stellar halo, in order to investigate what the next generation of astrometric satellites will reveal by observing the halo of the Milky Way. We generate artificial DIVA, FAME and GAIA halo catalogues, in which we look for the signatures left by the accreted satellites. We develop a method based on the standard Friends-of-Friends algorithm applied to the space of integrals of motion. We find this simple method can recover about 50% of the different accretion events, when the obser…
High resolution simulations reveal that in the cold dark matter scenario the structures form hierarchically and a large number of substructures survive in the galactic halos. The substructures can be probed if they emit gamma rays via dark matter annihilation. We calculated the gamma ray fluxes from the dark matter annihilations in the substructures of our Galaxy within the frame of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. The uncertainties of the prediction from both the low energy supersymmetry and especially from the density profiles of dark matter in the substructures ar…
Since dark matter clusters and groups may have substructure, we have examined the sextupole content of Hubble images looking for a curvature signature in background galaxies that would arise from galaxy-galaxy lensing. We describe techniques for extracting and analyzing sextupole and higher weakly lensed moments. Indications of substructure, via spatial clumping of curved background galaxies, were observed in the image of CL0024 and then surprisingly in both Hubble deep fields. We estimate the dark cluster masses in the deep field. Alternatives to a lensing hypothesis appear improbable, but be…
Two studies have recently reported the discovery of pronounced Halo substructure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) commissioning data. Here we show that this Halo substructure is almost in its entirety due to the expected tidal stream torn off the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy during the course of its many close encounters with the Milky Way. This interpretation makes strong predictions on the kinematics and distances of these stream stars. Comparison of the structure in old horizontal branch stars, detected by the SDSS team, with the carbon star structure discovered in our own survey, indicat…
Recent years have seen a series of large-scale photometric surveys with the aim of detecting substructure in nearby dwarf galaxies. Some of these objects display a varying distribution of each stellar population, reflecting their star formation histories. Also, dwarf galaxies are dominated by dark matter, therefore luminous substructure may represent a perturbation in the underlying dark material. Substructure can also be the effect of tidal interaction, such as the disruption of the Sagittarius dSph by the Milky Way. Therefore, substructure in dwarf galaxies manifests the stellar, structural …
We search for signatures of past accretion events in the Milky Way in the recently published catalogue by Nordstrom et al.(2004), containing accurate spatial and kinematic information as well as metallicities for 13240 nearby stars. To optimize our strategy, we use numerical simulations to characterize the properties of the debris from disrupted satellites. We find that stars with a common progenitor should show distinct correlations between their orbital parameters; in particular, between the apocentre A and pericentre P, as well as their z-angular momentum (L_z). In the APL-space, such stars…
We show how observations of multiply-imaged quasars at high redshift can be used as a probe of dark matter clumps (subhalos with masses ~ 10^9 solar masses) within the virialized extent of more massive lensing halos. A large abundance of such satellites is predicted by numerical simulations of galaxy formation in cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogonies. Small-scale structure within galaxy halos affects the flux ratios of the images without appreciably changing their positions. We use numerical simulations to quantify the effect of dark matter substructure on the distribution of magnifications, and …
Earth-mass ``microhalos'' may be the first objects to virialize in the early universe. Their ability to survive the hierarchical clustering process as substructure in the larger halos that form subsequently has implications for dark matter detection experiments. We present a large N-body simulation of early substructure in a supersymmetric cold dark matter (SUSY-CDM) scenario characterized by an exponential cutoff in the power spectrum at M_c=10^-6 Msun. The simulation resolves a 0.014 Msun parent ``SUSY'' halo at z=75 with 14 million particles. On these scales the effective index of the power…
To determine the nature of the recently discovered, ring-like stellar structure at the Galactic anticenter, we have collected spectra of a set of presumed constituent M giants selected from the 2MASS point source catalog. Radial velocities have been obtained for stars spanning ~100 degrees, exhibiting a trend in velocity with Galactic longitude and an estimated dispersion of 20 +/- 4 km/sec. A mean metallicity [Fe/H] = -0.4 +/- 0.3 measured for these stars combines with previous evidence from the literature to suggest a population with a significant metallicity spread. In addition, a curious a…
We use the Millennium Simulation, a large, high resolution N-body simulation of the evolution of structure in a LambdaCDM cosmology, to study the properties and fate of substructures within a large sample of dark matter haloes. We find that the subhalo mass function departs significantly from a power law at the high mass end. We also find that the radial and angular distributions of substructures depend on subhalo mass. In particular, high mass subhaloes tend to be less radially concentrated and to have angular distributions closer to the direction perpendicular to the spin of the host halo th…
We develop a semi-analytical model that determines the evolution of the mass, position and internal structure of dark matter substructures orbiting in dark matter haloes. We apply this model to the case of the Milky Way. We focus in particular on the effects of mass loss, dynamical friction and substructure--substructure interactions, the last of which has previously been ignored in analytic models of substructure evolution. Our semi-analytical treatment reproduces both the spatial distribution of substructures and their mass function as obtained from the most recent N-body cosmological calcul…
We study the statistical properties of magnification perturbations by substructures in strong lensed systems using linear perturbation theory and an analytical substructure model including tidal truncation and a continuous substructure mass spectrum. We demonstrate that magnification perturbations are dominated by perturbers found within a tidal radius of an image, and that sizable magnification perturbations may arise from small, coherent contributions from several substructures within the lens halo. We find that the root-mean-square (rms) fluctuation of the magnification perturbation is 10% …
Recent observations on the cosmic microwave background by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe(WMAP) strongly suggest that the reionization of the universe took place quite early (z \sim 17). On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the cold dark matter cosmology suffers from the substructure problem that subgalactic halos are overproduced than the observed dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. In this paper, as a potential mechanism to solve this problem, we consider the feedback effects of the early reionization on the formation of small-scale structures. For this purpose, we perform 3D …
Numerical simulations have revealed the presence of long-lived substructure in Cold Dark Matter (CDM) halos. These surviving cores of past merger and accretion events vastly outnumber the known satellites of the Milky Way. This finding has prompted suggestions that substructure in cold dark matter (CDM) halos may be incompatible with observation and in conflict with the presence of thin, dynamically fragile stellar disks. N-body simulations of a disk/bulge/halo model of the Milky Way that includes several hundred dark matter satellites with masses, densities and orbits derived from high-resolu…
The GLAST LAT Collaboration is one among several experimental groups, covering a wide range of approaches, pursuing the search for the nature of dark matter. The GLAST LAT has the unique ability to find new sources of high energy gamma radiation emanating directly from WIMP annihilations in situ in the universe. Using it's wide band spectral and full sky spatial capabilities, the GLAST LAT can form "images" in high energy gamma-rays of dark matter substructures in the gamma-ray sky. We describe a preliminary feasibility study for indirect detection of Milky Way dark matter satellites using the…
We perform a set of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations to investigate the influence of cold dark matter (CDM) substructure on the dynamical evolution of thin galactic disks. Our method combines cosmological simulations of galaxy-sized CDM halos to derive the properties of substructure populations and controlled numerical experiments of consecutive subhalo impacts onto initially-thin, fully-formed disk galaxies. We demonstrate that close encounters between massive subhalos and galactic disks since z~1 should be common occurrences in LCDM models. In contrast, extremely few satel…
Spatially resolved spectroscopic data from the CIRPASS integral field unit (IFU) on Gemini are used to measure the gravitational lensing of the 4-image quasar Q2237+0305 on different size scales. A method for measuring the substructure present in the lens using observations at multiple wavelengths is demonstrated to be very effective and independent of many of the degeneracies inherent in previous methods. The magnification ratios of the QSO's narrow line region (NLR) and broad line region (BLR) are measured and found to be disagree with each other and with the published radio and mid-infrared…
We use high resolution 2D hydrodynamic simulations to study the formation of spiral substructure in the gaseous disk of a galaxy. The obtained gaseous response is driven by a self-consistent non-axisymmetric potential obtained from an imposed spiral mass distribution. We highlight the importance of ultraharmonic resonances in generating these features. The temporal evolution of the system is followed with the parallel ZEUS-MP code, and we follow the steepening of perturbations induced by the spiral potential until large-scale shocks emerge. These shocks exhibit bifurcations that protrude from …
Using high resolution cosmological N-body simulations, we investigate the survival of dark matter satellites falling into larger haloes. Satellites preserve their identity for some time after merging. We compute their loss of mass, energy and angular momentum as dynamical friction, tidal forces and collisions with other satellites dissolve them. We also analyse the evolution of their internal structure. Satellites with less than a few per cent the mass of the main halo may survive for several billion years, whereas larger satellites rapidly sink into the center of the main halo potential well …
We investigate the effects of numerous dark matter subhalos in a galaxy-sized halo on the events of strong lensing, to assess their presence as expected from the cold dark matter scenario. Lens galaxies are represented by a smooth ellipsoid in an external shear field and additional cold dark matter subhalos taken from Monte Carlo realizations which accord with recent N-body results. We also consider other possible perturbers, globular clusters and luminous dwarf satellites, for comparison. We then apply the models to the particular lens systems with four images, B1422+231 and PG1115+080, for w…
We present initial results from ``Via Lactea'', the highest resolution simulation to date of Galactic CDM substructure. It follows the formation of a Milky Way-size halo with Mvir=1.8x10^12 Msun in a WMAP 3-year cosmology, using 234 million particles. Over 10,000 subhalos can be identified at z=0: Their cumulative mass function is well-fit by N(>Msub)= 0.0064 (Msub/Mvir)^(-1) down to Msun=4x10^6 Msun. The total mass fraction in subhalos is 5.3%, while the fraction of surface mass density in substructure within a projected distance of 10 kpc from the halo center is 0.3%. Because of the signific…
We estimate the probability of detecting gamma-rays from the annihilation of neutralino dark matter in the substructure of the Milky Way. We characterize substructure statistically based on Monte Carlo realizations of the formation of a Milky Way-like halo using semi-analytic methods that have been calibrated against N-body simulations. We find that it may be possible for the upcoming GLAST and VERITAS experiments, working in concert, to detect gamma-rays from dark matter substructure if $\Mchi \lsim 100 \GeV$, while for $\Mchi \gsim 500 \GeV$ such a detection seems unlikely. We investigate th…
The abundance and structure of dark matter subhalos has been analyzed extensively in recent studies of dark matter-only simulations, but comparatively little is known about the impact of baryonic physics on halo substructures. We here extend the SUBFIND algorithm for substructure identification such that it can be reliably applied to dissipative hydrodynamical simulations that include star formation. This allows, in particular, the identification of galaxies as substructures in simulations of clusters of galaxies, and a determination of their content of gravitationally bound stars, dark matter…
The properties of multiple image gravitational lenses require a fractional surface mass density in satellites of f=0.02 (0.006 < f < 0.07 at 90% confidence) that is consistent with the expectations for CDM. The characteristic satellite mass scale, 10^6-10^9 Msun, is also consistent with the expectations for CDM. The agreement between the observed and expected density of CDM substructure shows that most low mass galactic satellites fail to form stars, and this absence of star formation explains the discrepancy between the number of observed Galactic satellites and CDM predictions rather than an…
We study formation and evolution of bar-disk systems in fully self-consistent cosmological simulations of galaxy formation in the LCDM WMAP3 Universe. In a representative model we find that the first generation of bars form in response to the asymmetric dark matter (DM) distribution (i.e., DM filament) and quickly decay. Subsequent bar generations form and are destroyed during the major merger epoch permeated by interactions with a DM substructure (subhalos). A long-lived bar is triggered by a tide from a subhalo and survives for ~10 Gyr. The evolution of this bar is followed during the subseq…
We examine recent suggestions that substructure in cold dark matter (CDM) halos may be in conflict with the presence of thin, dynamically fragile stellar disks. N-body simulations of an isolated disk/bulge/halo model of the Milky Way that includes several hundred dark matter satellites with masses, densities and orbits derived from high-resolution cosmological CDM simulations indicate that substructure at $z=0$ plays only a minor dynamical role in the heating of the disk over several Gyrs. This is because the orbits of satellites in present-day CDM halos seldom take them near the disk, where t…
We study the survival of substructures (clumps) within larger self-gravitating dark matter halos. Building on scaling relations obtained from N-body calculations of violent relaxation, we argue that the tidal field of galaxies and halos can only destroy substructures if spherical symmetry is imposed at formation. We explore other mechanisms that may tailor the number of halo substructures during the course of virialization. Unless the larger halo is built up from a few large clumps, we find that clump-clump encounters are unlikely to homogenize the halo on a dynamical timescale. Phase mixing w…
