We study how the indirect observation of dark matter substructures in the Milky Way, using recent stellar stream studies, translates into constraints for different dark matter models. Particularly, we use the measured number of dark subhalos in the mass range $10^7-10^9\,{\rm M_{\odot}}$ to constrain modifications of the subhalo mass function compared to the cold dark matter scenario. We obtain the lower bounds $m_{\rm WDM} > 3.2\,{\rm keV}$ and $m_{\rm FDM} > 5.2\times 10^{-21}\,{\rm eV}$ on the warm dark matter and fuzzy dark matter particle mass, respectively. When dark matter is coupled to a dark radiation bath, we find that kinetic decoupling must take place at temperatures higher than $T_{\rm kd} > 0.7\,{\rm keV}$. We also discuss future prospects of stellar stream observations.
Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theory, a pillar of modern cosmology and astrophysics, predicts the existence of a large number of starless dark matter halos surrounding the Milky Way (MW). However, clear observational evidence of these "dark" substructures remains elusive. Here, we present a detection method based on the small, but detectable, velocity changes that an orbiting substructure imposes on the stars in the MW disk. Using high-resolution numerical simulations we estimate that the new space telescope Gaia should detect the kinematic signatures of a few starless substructures provided the CDM …
We present a model for the interaction of the GD-1 stellar stream with a massive perturber that naturally explains many of the observed stream features, including a gap and an off-stream spur of stars. The model involves an impulse by a fast encounter, after which the stream grows a loop of stars at different orbital energies. At specific viewing angles, this loop appears offset from the stream track. A quantitative comparison of the spur and gap features prefers models where the perturber is in the mass range of $10^6\,\rm M_\odot$ to $10^8\,\rm M_\odot$. Orbit integrations back in time show …
Stellar streams originating in disrupted dwarf galaxies and star clusters are observed around the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. Such substructures are the important tracers that record how the host haloes have accreted progenitor galaxies. Based on the cosmological context, we investigate the relationship between structural properties of substructures such as length and thinness at $z=0$, and orbits of their progenitors. We model stellar components of a large sample of substructures around Milky Way-sized haloes by combining semi-analytic models with a high-resolution cosmological $N$-body si…
We investigate the impact of dynamical streams and substructure on estimates of the local escape speed and total mass of Milky Way-mass galaxies from modelling the high velocity tail of local halo stars. We use a suite of high-resolution, magneto-hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations, which resolve phase space substructure in local volumes around solar-like positions. We show that phase space structure varies significantly between positions in individual galaxies and across the suite. Substructure populates the high velocity tail unevenly and leads to discrepancies in the mass estima…
We study the effects of substructure on the rate of dark-matter annihilation in the Galactic halo. We use an analytic model for substructure that can extend numerical simulation results to scales too small to be resolved by the simulations. We first calibrate the analytic model to numerical simulations, and then determine the annihilation boost factor, for standard WIMP models as well as those with Sommerfeld (or other) enhancements, as a function of Galactocentric radius in the Milky Way. We provide an estimate of the dependence of the gamma-ray intensity of WIMP annihilation as a function of…
We identify ten -- seven for the first time -- elements of cold halo substructure (ECHOS) in the volume within 17.5 kpc of the Sun in the inner halo of the Milky Way. Our result is based on the observed spatial and radial velocity distribution of metal-poor main sequence turnoff (MPMSTO) stars in 137 Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) lines of sight. We point out that the observed radial velocity distribution is consistent with a smooth stellar component of the Milky Way's inner halo overall, but disagrees significantly at the radial velocities that correspond t…
The unambiguous detection of Galactic dark matter annihilation would unravel one of the most outstanding puzzles in particle physics and cosmology. Recent observations have motivated models in which the annihilation rate is boosted by the Sommerfeld effect, a non-perturbative enhancement arising from a long range attractive force. Here we apply the Sommerfeld correction to Via Lactea II, a high resolution N-body simulation of a Milky-Way-size galaxy, to investigate the phase-space structure of the Galactic halo. We show that the annihilation luminosity from kinematically cold substructure can …
We study the application of machine learning techniques for the detection of the astrometric signature of dark matter substructure. In this proof of principle a population of dark matter subhalos in the Milky Way will act as lenses for sources of extragalactic origin such as quasars. We train {\it ResNet-18}, a state-of-the-art convolutional neural network to classify angular velocity maps of a population of quasars into lensed and no lensed classes. We show that an SKA -like survey with extended operational baseline can be used to probe the substructure content of the Milky Way, and demonstra…
We employ numerical simulations and simple analytical estimates to argue that dark matter substructures orbiting in the inner regions of the Galaxy can be efficiently destroyed by disk shocking, a dynamical process known to affect globular star clusters. We carry out a set of fiducial high-resolution collisionless simulations in which we adiabatically grow a disk, allowing us to examine the impact of the disk on the substructure abundance. We also track the orbits of dark matter satellites in the high-resolution Aquarius simulations and analytically estimate the cumulative halo and disk shocki…
We determine the average metallicities of the elements of cold halo substructure (ECHOS) that we previously identified in the inner halo of the Milky Way within 17.5 kpc of the Sun. As a population, we find that stars kinematically associated with ECHOS are chemically distinct from the background kinematically smooth inner halo stellar population along the same Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) line of sight. ECHOS are systematically more iron-rich, but less alpha-enhanced than the kinematically-smooth component of the inner halo. ECHOS are also chemically dist…
The predicted abundance and properties of the low-mass substructures embedded inside larger dark matter haloes differ sharply among alternative dark matter models. Too small to host galaxies themselves, these subhaloes may still be detected via gravitational lensing, or via perturbations of the Milky Way's globular cluster streams and its stellar disk. Here we use the Apostle cosmological simulations to predict the abundance and the spatial and velocity distributions of subhaloes in the range 10^6.5-10^8.5 solar masses inside haloes of mass ~ 10^12 solar masses in LCDM. Although these subhaloe…
In recent years, Bose-Einstein-condensed dark matter (BEC-DM) has become a popular alternative to standard, collisionless cold dark matter (CDM). This BEC-DM - also called scalar field dark matter (SFDM) - can suppress structure formation and thereby resolve the small-scale crisis of CDM for a range of boson masses. However, these same boson masses also entail implications for BEC-DM substructure within galaxies, especially within our own Milky Way. Observational signature effects of BEC-DM substructure depend upon its unique quantum-mechanical features and have the potential to reveal its pre…
We study the properties of the dark matter component of the radially anisotropic stellar population recently identified in the Gaia data, using magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way-like halos from the Auriga project. We identify 10 simulated galaxies that approximately match the rotation curve and stellar mass of the Milky Way. Four of these have an anisotropic stellar population reminiscent of the Gaia structure. We find an anti-correlation between the dark matter mass fraction of this population in the Solar neighbourhood and its orbital anisotropy. We estimate the local dark matt…
We find that the relative contribution of satellite galaxies accreted at high redshift to the stellar population of the Milky Way's smooth halo increases with distance, becoming observable relative to the classical smooth halo about 15 kpc from the Galactic center. In particular, we determine line-of-sight-averaged [Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe] in the metal-poor main-sequence turnoff (MPMSTO) population along every Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) spectroscopic line of sight. Restricting our sample to those lines of sight along which we do not detect elements of cold …
We study evolution of single subhaloes with their masses of $\sim10^9 M_\odot$ in a Milky-Way-sized host halo for self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) models. We perform dark-matter-only N-body simulations of dynamical evolution of individual subhaloes orbiting its host by varying self-scattering cross sections (including a velocity-dependent scenario), subhalo orbits, and internal properties of the subhalo. We calibrate a gravothermal fluid model to predict time evolution in spherical mass density profiles of isolated SIDM haloes with the simulations. We find that tidal effects of SIDM subhalo…
The observed population of the Milky Way satellite galaxies offer a unique testing ground for galaxy formation theory on small-scales. Our novel approach was to investigate the clustering of the known Milky Way satellite galaxies and to quantify the amount of substructure within their distribution using a two-point correlation function statistic in each of three spaces: configuration space, line-of-sight velocity space, and four-dimensional phase-space. These results were compared to those for three sets of subhaloes in the Via Lactea II Cold Dark Matter simulation defined to represent the lum…
Collisionless simulations of the CDM cosmology predict a plethora of dark matter substructures in the halos of Milky Way sized galaxies, yet the number of known luminous satellites galaxies is very much smaller, a discrepancy that has become known as the `missing satellite problem'. The most massive substructures have been shown to be plausibly the hosts of the brightest satellites, but it remains unclear which processes prevent star formation in the many other, purely dark substructures. We use high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of the formation of Milky Way sized galaxies in order to t…
We study high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of Milky Way type galaxies obtained within the "Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments" (EAGLE) project, and identify the those that best satisfy observational constraints on the Milky Way total stellar mass, rotation curve, and galaxy shape. Contrary to mock galaxies selected on the basis of their total virial mass, the Milky Way analogues so identified consistently exhibit very similar dark matter profiles inside the solar circle, therefore enabling more accurate predictions for indirect dark matter searches. We find in par…
We construct a new sample of ~1700 solar neighbourhood halo subdwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, selected using a reduced proper motion diagram. Radial velocities come from the SDSS spectra and proper motions from the light-motion curve catalogue of Bramich et al. (2008). Using a photometric parallax relation to estimate distances gives us the full phase-space coordinates. Typical velocity errors are in the range 30-50 km/s. This halo sample is one of the largest constructed to-date and the disc contamination is at a level of < 1 per cent. This enables us to calculate the halo velocity…
The annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles in the Milky Way can contribute to the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGRB). Due to the presence of substructures, this emission will appear anisotropic in a predictable way. We generate full-sky maps of the gamma-ray emission in galactic substructures from results of the high-resolution Via Lactea II N-body simulation of the Milky Way DM halo. We calculate the anisotropy pattern, taking into account different radial profiles of the DM distribution in substructures, cosmic variance, and the detection threshold, and compare it to the anisotropy in t…
An excess of gamma rays has been identified at the centre of the Milky Way, and annihilation of dark matter has been posited as a potential source. This hypothesis faces significant challenges: difficulty characterizing astrophysical backgrounds, the need for a non-trivial adiabatic contraction of the inner part of the Milky Way's dark matter halo, and recent observations of photon clustering, which suggest that the majority of the excess is due to unresolved point sources. Here we point out that the apparent point-like nature of the emission rules out the dark matter interpretation of the exc…
The satellite galaxies of the Milky Way (MW) are effective probes of the underlying dark matter (DM) substructure, which is sensitive to the nature of the DM particle. In particular, a class of DM models have a power spectrum cut-off on the mass scale of dwarf galaxies and thus predict only small numbers of substructures below the cut-off mass. This makes the MW satellite system appealing to constrain the DM properties: feasible models must produce enough substructure to host the number of observed Galactic satellites. Here, we compare theoretical predictions of the abundance of DM substructur…
We study the implications of galaxy formation on dark matter direct detection using high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies simulated within the EAGLE and APOSTLE projects. We identify Milky Way analogues that satisfy observational constraints on the Milky Way rotation curve and total stellar mass. We then extract the dark matter density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood for this set of Milky Way analogues, and use them to analyse the results of current direct detection experiments. For most Milky Way analogues, the event rates in direct detection…
Gravitational encounters between small-scale dark matter substructure and cold stellar streams in the Milky Way halo lead to density perturbations in the latter, making streams an effective probe for detecting dark matter substructure. The Pal 5 stream is one such system for which we have some of the best data. However, Pal 5 orbits close to the center of the Milky Way and has passed through the Galactic disk many times, where its structure can be perturbed by baryonic structures such as the Galactic bar and giant molecular clouds (GMCs). In order to understand how these baryonic structures af…
Ultralight axion-like particles $m_a \sim 10^{-22}$ eV, or Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM), behave comparably to cold dark matter (CDM) on cosmological scales and exhibit a kpc-size de Broglie wavelength capable of alleviating established (sub-)galactic-scale problems of CDM. Substructures inside an FDM halo incur gravitational potential perturbations, resulting in stellar heating sufficient to account for the Galactic disc thickening over a Hubble time, as first demonstrated by Church et al. We present a more sophisticated treatment that incorporates the full baryon and dark matter distributions of t…
The thermal and expansion history of the Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis is unknown. We investigate the evolution of cosmological perturbations through the transition from an early matter era to radiation domination. We treat reheating as the perturbative decay of an oscillating scalar field into relativistic plasma and cold dark matter. After reheating, we find that subhorizon perturbations in the decay-produced dark matter density are significantly enhanced, while subhorizon radiation perturbations are instead suppressed. If dark matter originates in the radiation bath after reheati…
We show that subhalos falling into the Milky Way create a flow of tidally-stripped debris particles near the galactic center with characteristic velocity behavior. In the Via Lactea-II N-body simulation, this unvirialized component constitutes a few percent of the local density and has velocities peaked at 340 km/s in the solar neighborhood. Such velocity substructure has important implications for surveys of low-metallicity stars, as well as direct detection experiments sensitive to dark matter with large scattering thresholds.
Small-scale dark matter structure within the Milky Way is expected to affect pulsar timing. The change in gravitational potential induced by a dark matter halo passing near the line of sight to a pulsar would produce a varying delay in the light travel time of photons from the pulsar. Individual transits produce an effect that would either be too rare or too weak to be detected in 30-year pulsar observations. However, a population of dark matter subhalos would be expected to produce a detectable effect on the measured properties of pulsars if the subhalos constitute a significant fraction of t…
The Milky Way's (MW) satellite population is a powerful probe of warm dark matter (WDM) models as the abundance of small substructures is very sensitive to the properties of the WDM particle. However, only a partial census of the MW's complement of satellite galaxies exists because surveys of the MW's close environs are incomplete both in depth and in sky coverage. We present a new Bayesian analysis that combines the sample of satellites recently discovered by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with those found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to estimate the total satellite galaxy luminosity …
In models of dark matter (DM) with Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilation, where the annihilation rate scales as the inverse velocity, N-body simulations of DM structure formation suggest that the local annihilation signal may be dominated by small, dense, cold subhalos. This contrasts with the usual assumption of a signal originating from the smooth DM halo, with much higher velocity dispersion. Accounting for local substructure modifies the parameter space for which Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilating DM can explain the PAMELA and Fermi excesses. Limits from the inner galaxy and the cosmic microwave …
The stellar halo of the Milky Way is known to have a highly lumpy structure due to the presence of tidal debris and streams accreted from the satellite galaxies. The abundance and distribution of these substructures can provide a wealth of information on the assembly history of the Milky Way. We use some information-theoretic measures to study the anisotropy in a set of Milky Way-sized stellar halos from the Bullock & Johnston suite of simulations that uses a hybrid approach coupling semi-analytic and N-body techniques. Our analysis shows that the whole-sky anisotropy in each stellar halo incr…
We introduce an extension of the ELVIS project to account for the effects of the Milky Way galaxy on its subhalo population. Our simulation suite, Phat ELVIS, consists of twelve high-resolution cosmological dark matter-only (DMO) zoom simulations of Milky Way-size $Λ$CDM~ haloes ($M_{\rm v} = 0.7-2 \times 10^{12} \,\mathrm{M}_\odot$) along with twelve re-runs with embedded galaxy potentials grown to match the observed Milky Way disk and bulge today. The central galaxy potential destroys subhalos on orbits with small pericenters in every halo, regardless of the ratio of galaxy mass to halo mass…
Bloodhound Unleashed: Particle-based Substructure Tracking for Cosmological Simulations
The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute（伦斯勒理工学院）；University of California, Irvine（加州大学尔湾分校）；University of Southern California（南加州大学）
A very general cosmological consideration suggests that, along with galactic dark matter halos, much smaller dark matter structures may exist. These structures are usually called 'clumps', and their mass extends to $10^{-6} M_\odot$ or even lower. The clumps should give the main contribution into the signal of dark matter annihilation, provided that they have survived until the present time. Recent observations favor a cored profile for low-mass astrophysical halos. We consider cored clumps and show that they are significantly less firm than the standard NFW ones. In contrast to the standard s…
The origin of the Galactic halo stellar structure known as the Monoceros ring is still under debate. In this work, we study that halo substructure using deep CFHT wide-field photometry obtained for the globular clusters NGC2419 and Koposov2, where the presence of Monoceros becomes significant because of their coincident projected position. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry and spectroscopy in the area surrounding these globulars and beyond, where the same Monoceros population is detected, we conclude that a second feature, not likely to be associated with Milky Way disk stars along the…
We study the spiral arm influence on the solar neighbourhood stellar kinematics. As the nature of the Milky Way (MW) spiral arms is not completely determined, we study two models: the Tight-Winding Approximation (TWA) model, which represents a local approximation, and a model with self-consistent material arms named PERLAS. This is a mass distribution with more abrupt gravitational forces. We perform test particle simulations after tuning the two models to the observational range for the MW spiral arm properties. We explore the effects of the arm properties and find that a significant region o…
Dark matter substructure has the potential to discriminate between broad classes of dark matter models. With this in mind, we construct novel solutions to the equations of motion governing condensate dark matter candidates, namely axion Bose-Einstein condensates and superfluids. These solutions are highly compressed along one axis and thus have a disk-like geometry. We discuss linear stability of these solutions, consider the astrophysical implications as a large-scale dark disk or as small scale substructure, and find a characteristic signal in strong gravitational lensing. This adds to the g…
We combine the high-resolution Aquarius simulations with three-dimensional models of reionization based on the initial density field of the Aquarius parent simulation, Millennium-II, to study the impact of patchy reionization on the faint satellite population of Milky Way halos. Because the Aquarius suite consists of zoom-in simulations of halos in the Millennium-II volume, we follow the formation of substructure and the growth of reionization bubbles due to the larger environment simultaneously, and thereby determine the reionization redshifts of satellite candidates. We do this for four diff…
We present a morphological study of 35 X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at 0.15<z<0.3, selected in a similar manner to the Local Cluster Substructure Survey (LoCuSS), for which deep XMM-Newton observations are available. We characterise the structure of the X-ray surface brightness distribution of each cluster by measuring both their power ratios and centroid shift, and thus rank the clusters by the degree of substructure. These complementary probes give a consistent description of the cluster morphologies with some well understood exceptions. We find a remarkably tight correlation of regular mo…
We study the flux and the angular power spectrum of gamma-rays produced by Dark Matter (DM) annihilations in the Milky Way (MW) and in extra-galactic halos. The annihilation signal receives contributions from: a) the smooth MW halo, b) resolved and unresolved substructures in the MW, c) external DM halos at all redshifts, including d) their substructures. Adopting a self-consistent description of local and extra-galactic substructures, we show that the annihilation flux from substructures in the MW dominates over all the other components for angles larger than O(1) degrees from the Galactic Ce…
We study the impact of thermal inflation on the formation of cosmological structures and present astrophysical observables which can be used to constrain and possibly probe the thermal inflation scenario. These are dark matter halo abundance at high redshifts, satellite galaxy abundance in the Milky Way, and fluctuation in the 21-cm radiation background before the epoch of reionization. The thermal inflation scenario leaves a characteristic signature on the matter power spectrum by boosting the amplitude at a specific wavenumber determined by the number of e-foldings during thermal inflation (…
