Ultralight-axion (ULA) dark matter is one of the possible solutions to resolve small-scale problems, especially the core-cusp problem. This is because ULA dark matter can create a central soliton core in all dark matter haloes stemmed from the quantum pressure against gravity below the de Broglie wavelength, which becomes manifest on astrophysical scales with axion mass range $\sim10^{-22}$ eV. In this work, we apply our non-spherical dynamical models to the kinematic data of eight classical dwarf spheroidals (dSphs) to obtain more reliable and realistic limits on ULA particle mass. This is motivated by the reasons that the light distributions of the dSphs are not spherical, nor are the shapes of dark matter haloes predicted by ULA dark matter simulations. Compared with the previous studies on ULA dark matter assuming spherical mass models, our result is less stringent than those constraints due to the uncertainties on non-sphericity. On the other hand, remarkably, we find that the dSphs would prefer to have a flattened dark matter halo rather than a spherical one, especially Draco favours a strongly elongated dark matter halo caused naively by the assumption of a soliton-core profile. Moreover, our consequent non-spherical core profiles are much more flattened than numerical predictions based on ULA dark matter, even though there are still uncertainties on the estimation of dark matter halo structure. To alleviate this discrepancy, further understanding of baryonic and/or ULA dark matter physics on small mass scales might be needed.
We consider motion in spherically symmetric but time-dependent backgrounds. This problem is of interest, for example, in the context of ultralight dark matter, where galactic haloes produce a time-dependent and periodic gravitational potential. We study the properties of motion of stars in such spacetimes, for different field strengths and frequency, and including dissipative effects. We show that orbital resonances may occur and that spectroscopic emission lines from stars in these geometries exhibit characteristic, periodic modulation patterns. In addition, we work out a fully relativistic a…
The morphology of haloes inform about both cosmological and galaxy formation models. We use the Minkowski Functionals (MFs) to characterize the actual morphology of haloes, only partially captured by smooth density profile, going beyond the spherical or ellipsoidal symmetry. We employ semi-analytical haloes with NFW and $αβγ$-profile and spherical or ellipsoidal shape to obtain a clear interpretation of MFs as function of inner and outer slope, concentration and sphericity parameters. We use the same models to mimic the density profile of $N$-body haloes, showing that their MFs clearly differ …
We use the Horizon Run 4 cosmological N -body simulation to study the effects of distant and close interactions on the alignments of the shapes, spins, and orbits of targets haloes with their neighbours, and their dependence on the local density environment and neighbour separation. Interacting targets have a significantly lower spin and higher sphericity and oblateness than all targets. Interacting pairs initially have anti-parallel spins, but the spins develop parallel alignment as time goes on. Neighbours tend to evolve in the plane of rotation of the target, and in the direction of the maj…
We investigate the role of angular momentum in the clustering of dark matter haloes. We make use of data from two high-resolution N-body simulations spanning over four orders of magnitude in halo mass, from $10^{9.8}$ to $10^{14}\ h^{-1}\ \text{M}_\odot$. We explore the hypothesis that mass accretion in filamentary environments alters the angular momentum of a halo, thereby driving a correlation between the spin parameter $λ$ and the strength of clustering. However, we do not find evidence that the distribution of matter on large scales is related to the spin of haloes. We find that a halo's s…
We study the properties of dark matter haloes in a wide range of modified gravity models, namely, $f(R)$, DGP, and interacting dark energy models. We study the effects of modified gravity and dark energy on the internal properties of haloes, such as the spin and the structural parameters. We find that $f(R)$ gravity enhance the median value of the Bullock spin parameter, but could not detect such effects for DGP and coupled dark energy. $f(R)$ also yields a lower median sphericity and oblateness, while coupled dark energy has the opposite effect. However, these effects are very small. We then …
Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM) comprised of ultralight bosons has attracted great interest as an alternative to standard, collisionless Cold Dark Matter (CDM) because of its novel structure-formation dynamics, described by the coupled Schrödinger-Poisson equations. In the free-field ("fuzzy") limit of SFDM (FDM), structure is inhibited below the de Broglie wavelength, but resembles CDM on larger scales. Virialized haloes have "solitonic" cores of radius $\simλ_\text{deB}$, surrounded by CDM-like envelopes. When a strong enough repulsive self-interaction (SI) is also present, structure can be …
We assume dark matter to be a cosmological self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensate of non-relativistic ultralight scalar particles with competing gravitational and repulsive contact interactions and investigate the observational implications of such model. The system is unstable to the formation of stationary self-bound structures that minimize the energy functional. These cosmological superfluid droplets, which are the smallest possible gravitationally bound dark matter structures, exhibit a universal mass profile and a corresponding universal rotation curve. Assuming a hierarchical structu…
We present measurements of the morphology of star-forming gas in galaxies from the EAGLE simulations, and its alignment relative to stars and dark matter (DM). Imaging of such gas in the radio continuum enables weak lensing experiments that complement traditional optical approaches. Star-forming gas is typically more flattened than its associated stars and DM, particularly for present-day subhaloes of total mass $\sim$$10^{ 12-12.5} \mathrm{M_{ \odot}}$, which preferentially host star-forming galaxies with rotationally-supported stellar discs. Such systems have oblate, spheroidal star-forming …
Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM), comprised of ultralight ($\gtrsim 10^{-22}$ eV) bosons, is distinguished from massive ($\gtrsim$ GeV), collisionless Cold Dark Matter (CDM) by its novel structure-formation dynamics as Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) and quantum superfluid with wave-like properties, described by the Gross-Pitaevski and Poisson (GPP) equations. In the free-field (fuzzy) limit of SFDM (FDM), structure is inhibited below the de Broglie wavelength $λ_{\text{deB}}$, but resembles CDM on larger scales. Virialized haloes have solitonic cores of radius $\sim λ_{\text{deB}}$ that follow …
We present a theoretical analysis of some unexplored aspects of relaxed Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter (BECDM) haloes. This type of ultralight bosonic scalar field dark matter is a viable alternative to the standard cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm, as it makes the same large-scale predictions as CDM and potentially overcomes CDM's small-scale problems via a galaxy-scale de Broglie wavelength. We simulate BECDM halo formation through mergers, evolved under the Schrödinger-Poisson equations. The formed haloes consist of a soliton core supported against gravitational collapse by the quantum…
We extend the analysis of Pace et al., JCAP, 2019, 060, by considering the virialization process in the extended spherical collapse model for clustering dark-energy models, i.e., accounting for dark-energy fluctuations. Differently from the standard approach, here virialization is naturally achieved by properly modelling deviations from sphericity due to shear and rotation induced by tidal interactions. We investigate the time evolution of the virial overdensity $Δ_\mathrm{vir}$ in seven clustering dynamical dark energy models and compare the results to the $Λ$CDM model and to the correspondin…
Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM) comprised of ultralight ($\gtrsim 10^{-22}$ eV) bosons is an alternative to standard, collisionless Cold Dark Matter (CDM) that is CDM-like on large scales but inhibits small-scale structure formation. As a Bose-Einstein condensate, its free-field ("fuzzy") limit (FDM) suppresses structure below the de Broglie wavelength, $λ_\text{deB}$, creating virialized haloes with central cores of radius $\simλ_\text{deB}$, surrounded by CDM-like envelopes, and a halo mass function (HMF) with a sharp cut-off on small scales. With a strong enough repulsive self-interaction (…
We use the hydrodynamical EAGLE simulation to study the magnitude and origin of the scatter in the stellar mass - halo mass relation for central galaxies. We separate cause and effect by correlating stellar masses in the baryonic simulation with halo properties in a matched dark matter only (DMO) simulation. The scatter in stellar mass increases with redshift and decreases with halo mass. At $z = 0.1$ it declines from 0.25 dex at $M_{200, \rm DMO} \approx 10^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$ to 0.12 dex at $M_{200, \rm DMO} \approx 10^{13}$ M$_{\odot}$, but the trend is weak above $10^{12}$ M$_{\odot}$. For $…
