The statistical properties of dark matter halos, the building blocks of cosmological observables associated with structure in the universe, offer many opportunities to test models for cosmic acceleration, especially those that seek to modify gravitational forces. We study the abundance, bias and profiles of halos in cosmological simulations for one such model: the modified action f(R) theory. In the large field regime that is accessible to current observations, enhanced gravitational forces raise the abundance of rare massive halos and decrease their bias but leave their (lensing) mass profiles largely unchanged. This regime is well described by scaling relations based on a modification of spherical collapse calculations. In the small field regime, enhanced forces are suppressed inside halos and the effects on halo properties are substantially reduced for the most massive halos. Nonetheless, the scaling relations still retain limited applicability for the purpose of establishing conservative upper limits on the modification to gravity.
High-resolution, numerical simulations of 17 cluster-sized dark-matter haloes in eight different cosmologies with and without dynamical dark energy confirm the picture that core halo densities are imprinted early during their formation by the mean cosmological density. Quite independent of cosmology, halo concentrations have a log-normal distribution with a scatter of ~0.2 about the mean. We propose a simple scaling relation for halo concentrations in dark-energy cosmologies.
We study the efficiency of numerically simulated galaxy clusters for producing strong gravitational lensing events in different dark-energy cosmologies with constant and time-variable equation of state and we compare it with ``standard'' $Λ$CDM and OCDM models. Our main results are that: (1) the expected abundance of gravitational arcs with large length-to-width ratio depends on the equation of state of dark energy at the epoch of formation of the halo; (2) as found in previous studies, the strong lensing cross section of galaxy clusters is very sensitive to dynamical processes like mergers, w…
We study the concentration parameters, their mass dependence and redshift evolution, of dark-matter halos in different dark-energy cosmologies with constant and time-variable equation of state, and compare them with "standard'' Lambda-CDM and OCDM models. We find that previously proposed algorithms for predicting halo concentrations can be well adapted to dark-energy models. When centred on the analytically expected values, halo concentrations show a log-normal distribution with a uniform standard deviation of ~0.2. The dependence of averaged halo concentrations on mass and redshift permits a …
We study the formation of tidal tails in pairs of merging disk galaxies with structural properties motivated by current theories of cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies. In a recent study, Dubinski, Mihos & Hernquist (1996) showed that the formation of prominent tidal tails can be strongly suppressed by massive and extended dark haloes. For the large halo-to-disk mass ratio expected in CDM cosmologies their sequence of models failed to produce strong tails like those observed in many well-known pairs of interacting galaxies. In order to test whether this effect can constrain the viability of CDM…
We examine the linear density contrast at collapse time, $δ_c$ for large-scale structure in dynamical dark energy cosmologies, including models with early dark energy. Contrary to previous results, we find that as long as dark energy is homogeneous on small scales, $δ_c$ is insensitive to dark energy properties for parameter values fitting current data, including the case of early dark energy. This is significant since using the correct $δ_c$ is crucial for accurate Press-Schechter prediction of the halo mass function. Previous results have found an apparent failing of the extended Press-Schec…
We study the effects of a dark energy component with equation of state p=w rho with constant w >= -1 on the formation of Cold Dark Matter (CDM) haloes. We find two main effects: first, haloes form earlier as w increases, and second, the amplitude of the dark-matter power spectrum gets reduced in order to remain compatible with the large scale Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. These effects counteract. Using recipes derived from numerical simulations, we show that haloes are expected to be up to ~ 50% more concentrated in CDM models with quintessence compared to Lambda-CDM models,…
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 explore the dependence of the central logarithmic slope of dark matter halo density profiles $α$ on the spectral index $n$ of the linear matter power spectrum $P(k)$ using cosmological $N$-body simulations of scale-free models (i.e. $P(k) \propto k^n$). For each of our simulations we identify samples of well resolved haloes in dynamical equilibrium and we analyse their mass profiles. By parameterising the mass profile using a ``generalised'' Navarro, Frenk & White profile in which the central logarithmic slope $α$ is allowed to vary while preserving the $r^{-3}$ asymptotic form at large rad…
We use semi-analytical modelling of galaxy formation to study the redshift evolution of the galaxy merger fractions and merger ratesin Lambda CDM and quintessence (QCDM) cosmologies, their dependence on physical parameters as the environment, the merger timescale, the way major mergers are defined, and the minimum mass of objects taken into account. We find that for a given final halo mass the redshift dependence of the merger fraction F_mg and the resulting merger rate can be fitted well by a power law for redshifts z <= 1. The normalization F_{mg}(0) and the slope m depend on the final halo …
We study non-linear structure formation in high-resolution simulations of Early Dark Energy (EDE) cosmologies and compare their evolution with the standard LCDM model. Extensions of the spherical top-hat collapse model predict that the virial overdensity and linear threshold density for collapse should be modified in EDE model, yielding significant modifications in the expected halo mass function. Here we present numerical simulations that directly test these expectations. Interestingly, we find that the Sheth & Tormen formalism for estimating the abundance of dark matter halos continues to wo…
High-resolution N-body simulations of hierarchical cosmologies have shown that the density and velocity dispersion profiles of dark-matter haloes display well-definite universal forms whose origin remains unknown. In the present paper, we calculate the internal structure of haloes expected to arise in any such cosmologies by simply taking into account that halo growth proceeds through an alternate sequence of discrete major mergers and long periods of gentle accretion. Major mergers cause the violent relaxation of the system subject to the boundary conditions imposed by accreting layers beginn…
We use hydrodynamic cosmological simulations to study damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and Lyman limit (LL) absorption at redshifts z=2-4 in five variants of the cold dark matter scenario. Our standard simulations resolve the formation of dense concentrations of neutral gas in halos with circular velocity v_c roughly 140 km/s for Omega_m=1 and 90 km/s for Omega_m=0.4, at z=2; an additional LCDM simulation resolves halos down to v_c approximately 50 km/s at z=3. We find a clear relation between HI column density and projected distance to the center of the nearest galaxy, with DLA absorption usually con…
We combine data from a number of N-body simulations to predict the abundance of dark halos in Cold Dark Matter universes over more than 4 orders of magnitude in mass. A comparison of different simulations suggests that the dominant uncertainty in our results is systematic and is smaller than 10--30% at all masses, depending on the halo definition used. In particular, our ``Hubble Volume'' simulations of \tcdm and \lcdm cosmologies allow the abundance of massive clusters to be predicted with uncertainties well below those expected in all currently planned observational surveys. We show that for…
I use the statistical properties of 4588 nearby halo stars to show that if the local stellar halo is composed of cold streams from disrupted dwarf satellites as is predicted by popular cosmologies, then at 95% confidence there are at least 1350 such streams. Moreover, no stream can contain more than 2.3% of the local stars, while average streams must contain less than 0.08%.
We compute the expected gravitational wave signal from coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries at the center of galaxies in a hierarchical structure formation scenario in which seed holes of intermediate mass form far up in the dark halo merger tree. The merger history of DM halos and MBHs is followed from z=20 to the present in a LCDM cosmology. MBHs get incorporated through halo mergers into larger and larger structures, sink to the center owing to dynamical friction against the DM background, accrete cold material in the merger remnant, and form MBH binary systems. Stellar dynamical in…
We calculate evolution and nucleosynthesis in massive Pop III stars with M = 13 ~ 270Msun, and compare the results with abundances of very metal-poor halo stars. The observed abundances can be explained by the energetic core-collapse supernovae with M < ~ 130Msun (``hypernovae'') but not by pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) with M ~ 140-270 Msun. This result constrain the IMF for the Pop III and very metal-poor Pop II stars.
We present the results of a series of N-body simulations in cosmologies where dark matter (DM) is coupled to dark energy (DE), so easing the cosmic coincidence problem. The dark-dark coupling introduces two novel effects in N-body dynamics: (i) DM particle masses vary with time; (ii) gravity between DM particles is ruled by a constant $G^{*}$, greater than Newton's constant $G$, holding in other 2-body interactions. As a consequence, baryons and DM particle distributions develop a large scale bias. Here we investigate DE models with Ratra-Peebles (RP) potentials; the dark-dark coupling is set …
The diverse isotopic and elemental signatures produced in different nucleosynthetic sites are passed on to successive generations of stars. By tracing these chemical signatures back through the stellar populations of the Galaxy, it is possible to unravel its nucleosynthetic history and even to study stars which are now extinct. This review considers recent applications of "stellar genetics" to examine the earliest episodes of nucleosynthesis in the Universe, in Population III stars and the Big Bang.
If the accelerated expansion of the Universe at the present epoch is driven by a dark energy scalar field, there may well be a non-trivial coupling between the dark energy and the cold dark matter (CDM) fluid. Such interactions give rise to new features in cosmological structure growth, like an additional long-range attractive force between CDM particles, or variations of the dark matter particle mass with time. We have implemented these effects in the N-body code GADGET-2 and present results of a series of high-resolution N-body simulations where the dark energy component is directly interact…
We investigate the structure of the dark matter halo formed in the cold dark matter scenarios by N-body simulations with parallel treecode on GRAPE cluster systems. We simulated 8 halos with the mass of $4.4\times 10^{14}M_{\odot}$ to $1.6\times 10^{15}M_{\odot}$ in the SCDM and LCDM model using up to 30 million particles. With the resolution of our simulations, the density profile is reliable down to 0.2 percent of the virial radius. Our results show that the slope of inner cusp within 1 percent virial radius is shallower than -1.5, and the radius where the shallowing starts exhibits run-to-r…
The predicted central densities of dark matter halos in LCDM models exceed those observed in some galaxies. Weinberg & Katz argue that angular momentum transfer from a rotating bar in the baryonic disk can lower the halo density, but they also contend that N-body simulations of this process will not reveal the true continuum result unless many more than the usual numbers of particles are employed. Adopting their simplified model of a rotating rigid bar in a live halo, I have been unable to find any evidence to support their contention. I find that both the angular momentum transferred and the …
Properties of dark matter halos are reviewed. Taken from different publications, we present results on (1) the mass and velocity functions, (2) density and velocity profiles, and (3) concentration of halos. In the range of radii r=(0.005-1)rvir the density profile for a quiet isolated halo is very accurately approximated by a fit suggested by Moore etal (1997): rho=1/x^1.5(1+x^1.5), where x=r/rs and rs is a characteristic radius. The fit suggested by Navarro et al (1995) rho= 1/x(1+x)^2, also gives a very satisfactory approximation with relative errors of about 10% for radii not smaller than 1…
We present a complete spectroscopic survey of 2414 2MASS-selected blue horizontal branch (BHB) candidates selected over 4300 deg^2 of the sky. We identify 655 BHB stars in this non-kinematically selected sample. We calculate the luminosity function of field BHB stars and find evidence for very few hot BHB stars in the field. The BHB stars located at a distance from the Galactic plane |Z|<4 kpc trace what is clearly a metal-weak thick disk population, with a mean metallicity of [Fe/H]= -1.7, a rotation velocity gradient of dv_{rot}/d|Z|= -28+-3.4 km/s in the region |Z|<6 kpc, and a density scal…
We have simulated the evolution of tidal debris in the Galactic halo in order to guide our ongoing survey to determine the fraction of halo mass accreted via satellite infall. Contrary to naive expectations that the satellite debris will produce a single narrow velocity peak on a smooth distribution, there are many different signatures of substructure, including multiple peaks and broad but asymmetrical velocity distributions. Observations of the simulations show that there is a high probability of detecting the presence of tidal debris with a pencil beam survey of 100 square degrees. In the l…
We present new HST/WFPC2 (V,I) photometry for the red-giant stars in NGC 5128 at a projected distance of 8 kpc from the galaxy center, which probe a mixture of its inner halo and outer bulge. The color-magnitude diagram shows an old red-giant branch which is even broader in color than our two previously studied outer-halo fields (at 21 and 31 kpc), with significant numbers of stars extending to Solar metallicity and higher. The peak frequency of the metallicity distribution function (MDF) is at [m/H] ~ -0.4, with even fewer metal-poor stars than in the outer-halo fields. We find that the main …
We study the evolution of gas in HII regions around the first stars after the death of the exciting stars. If the first star in a small halo dies without supernova (SN), subsequent star formation is possible in the same halo. We thus investigate the effect of ionization of the gas on subsequent star formation within small halos in the early universe using one-dimensional hydrodynamics with spherical symmetry along with non-equilibrium primordial gas chemistry. We find that the enhanced electron fraction facilitates the formation of molecular hydrogen at the cores of these halos. The low temper…
In a previous paper, we described a new method for including detailed information about substructure in semi-analytic models of halo formation based on merger trees. In this paper, we compare the predictions of our model with results from self-consistent numerical simulations. We find that in general the two methods agree extremely well, particularly once numerical effects and selection effects in the choice of haloes are taken into account. As expected from the original analyses of the simulations, we see some evidence for artificial overmerging in the innermost regions of the simulated haloe…
We present an anisotropic cosmological model based on a new exact solution of Einstein equations. The matter content consists of an anisotropic scalar field minimally coupled to gravity and of two isotropic perfect fluids that represent dust matter and radiation. The spacetime is described by a spatially homogeneous, Bianchi type III metric with a conformal expansion. The model respects the evolution of the scale factor predicted by standard cosmology, as well as the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background. Remarkably, the introduction of the scalar field, apart from explaining the spaceti…
