A large body of work based on collisionless cosmological N-body simulations going back over two decades has advanced the idea that collapsed dark matter haloes have simple and approximately universal forms for their mass density and pseudo-phase space density (PPSD) distributions. However, a general consensus on the physical origin of these results has not yet been reached. In the present study, we explore to what extent the apparent universality of these forms holds when we vary the initial conditions (i.e., the primordial power spectrum of density fluctuations) away from the standard CMB-normalised case, but still within the context of LCDM with a fixed expansion history. Using simulations that vary the initial amplitude and shape, we show that the structure of dark matter haloes retains a clear memory of the initial conditions. Specifically, increasing (lowering) the amplitude of fluctuations increases (decreases) the concentration of haloes and, if pushed far enough, the density profiles deviate strongly from the NFW form that is a good approximation for the CMB-normalised case. Although, an Einasto form works well. Rather than being universal, the slope of the PPSD (or pseudo-entropy) profile steepens (flattens) with increasing (decreasing) power spectrum amplitude and can exhibit a strong halo mass dependence. Our results therefore indicate that the previously identified universality of the structure of dark matter haloes is mostly a consequence of adopting a narrow range of (CMB-normalised) initial conditions for the simulations. Our new suite provides a useful test-bench against which physical models for the origin of halo structure can be validated.
Primordial dark matter (DM) haloes are the smallest gravitationally bound DM structures from which the first stars, black holes, and galaxies form and grow in the early universe. However, their structures are sensitive to the free streaming scale of DM, which in turn depends on the nature of DM particles. In this work, we test the hypothesis that the slope of the central cusps in primordial DM haloes near the free streaming scale depends on the nature of merging process. By combining and analysing data from a cosmological simulation with the cutoff in the small-scale matter power spectrum as w…
We utilize Young's algorithm to model the adiabatic compression of the dark matter haloes of galaxies in the THINGS survey to determine the relationship between the halo fit to the rotation curve and the corresponding primordial halo prior to compression. Young's algorithm conserves radial action and angular momentum, resulting in less halo compression than more widely utilized approximations. We find that estimates of the parameters of the NFW haloes fit to the current dark matter distribution systematically overestimate the concentration and underestimate the virial velocity of the correspon…
Observational measures of the primordial helium mass fraction, $Y_{\rm P}$, are of interest for cosmology and fundamental particle physics. Current measures obtained from H II regions agree with the Standard Model prediction to approximately 1% precision, although these determinations may be affected by systematic uncertainties. This possibility can only be tested by independently measuring the helium abundance in new ways. Here, we propose a novel method to obtain a measurement of $Y_{\rm P}$ using hydrogen and helium recombination line emission from RELHICs: pristine, gas-rich but star-free …
We examine the stellar haloes of the Auriga simulations, a suite of thirty cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical high-resolution simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies performed with the moving-mesh code AREPO. We study halo global properties and radial profiles out to $\sim 150$ kpc for each individual galaxy. The Auriga haloes are diverse in their masses and density profiles; mean metallicity and metallicity gradients; ages; and shapes, reflecting the stochasticity inherent in their accretion and merger histories. A comparison with observations of nearby late-type galaxies shows very good agre…
Atomic cooling haloes with virial temperatures $\rm T_{vir} \geq 10^{4}$ K are the most plausible sites for the formation of the first galaxies and the first intermediate mass black holes. It is therefore important to assess whether one can obtain robust results concerning their main properties from numerical simulations. A major uncertainty is the presence of turbulence, which is barely resolved in cosmological simulations. We explore the latter both by pursuing high-resolution simulations with up to 64 cells per Jeans length and by incorporating a subgrid-scale turbulence model to account fo…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host and form stars. We investigate the onset of cosmological star formation and compare several very-high-resolution, three-dimensional, N-body/SPH simulations that include non-equilibrium, atomic and molecular chemistry, star formation prescriptions, and feedback effects. We study how primordial star formation depends on gas density thresholds, cosmological param…
We discuss early structure formation of small scales sourced by primordial black holes (PBHs) which constitute a small part of present cold dark matter component. We calculate the mass function and power spectrum of haloes originated from the Poisson fluctuations of PBH number and show that the number of small haloes is significantly modified in the presence of PBHs even if their fraction accounts for only $10^{-4}$--$10^{-3}$ of total dark matter abundance. We then compute the subsequent 21cm signature from those haloes. We find that PBHs can provide major contributions at high redshifts with…
While present standard model of cosmology yields no clear prediction for the initial magnetic field strength, efficient dynamo action may compensate for initially weak seed fields via rapid amplification. In particular, the small-scale dynamo is expected to exponentially amplify any weak magnetic field in the presence of turbulence. We explore whether this scenario is viable using cosmological magneto-hydrodynamics simulations modeling the formation of the first galaxies, which are expected to form in so-called atomic cooling halos with virial temperatures $\rm T_{vir} \geq 10^{4}$ K. As previ…
We explore the effect of a cubic correction gnl*phi^3 on the mass function and bias of dark matter haloes extracted from a series of large N-body simulations and compare it to theoretical predictions. Such cubic terms can be motivated in scenarios like the curvaton model, in which a large cubic correction can be produced while simultaneously keeping the quadratic fnl*phi^2 correction small. The deviation from the Gaussian halo mass function is in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions. The scale-dependent bias correction Delta b_kappa(k,gnl) measured from the auto- and cross-pow…
We study how primordial non-Gaussianities affect the clustering of voids at large scales. We derive a formula of the bias of voids induced from the non-Gaussianities by making use of the functional integral method. In a similar way as of haloes, we find that primordial non-Gaussianities can generate scale-dependence in the bias of voids at large scales. In addition, we show that by observing the cross power spectrum of voids and haloes we could check the consistency relation between the non-linearity parameters f_NL and tau_NL. Large voids (high peak objects) would be good targets since the ef…
The distribution of galaxies displays anisotropy on different scales and it is often referred as galaxy alignment. To understand the origin of galaxy alignments on small scales, one must investigate how galaxies were accreted in the early universe and quantify their primordial anisotropic at the time of accretion. In this paper we use N-body simulations to investigate the accretion of dark matter subhaloes, focusing on their alignment with the host halo shape and the orientation of mass distribution on large scale, defined using the hessian matrix of the density field. The large/small (e1/e3) …
Intermittent type of primordial non-Gaussian fluctuations from modulated preheating can produce an overabundance of $\sim 10^8M_\odot$ mini-haloes at high redshift $z\gtrsim 20$. This may have a significant impact on the formation of high-redshift supermassive black holes.
We use cosmological hydrodynamic zoom-in simulations and semi-analytical models to study the effects of primordial black holes (PBHs) on first star formation. Our models self-consistently combine two competing effects: initial (isocurvature) perturbations induced by PBHs and BH accretion feedback. Focusing on PBHs with masses $\sim 30\ \rm M_{\odot}$, we find that the standard picture of first star formation in molecular-cooling minihaloes is not changed by PBHs, as the simulated star-forming gas clouds in the central parsec are very similar to those in the $\rm ΛCDM$ case when PBHs make up $f…
We study the impact of primordial magnetic fields on the HI absorption from the Epoch of Reionization. The presence of these fields result in two distinct effects: (a) the heating of the haloes from the decay of magnetic fields owing to ambipolar diffusion, and (b) an increase in the number of haloes owing to additional matter fluctuations induced by magnetic fields. We analyse both these effects and show that the latter is potentially observable because the number of haloes along of line of sight can increase by many orders of magnitude. While this effect is not strongly dependent on the magn…
Standard big bang cosmology predicts a cosmic neutrino background at $T_ν\simeq 1.95~$K. Given the current neutrino oscillation measurements, we know most neutrinos move at large, but non-relativistic, velocities. Therefore, dark matter haloes moving in the sea of primordial neutrinos form a neutrino wake behind them, which would slow them down, due to the effect of {\it dynamical friction}. In this paper, we quantify this effect for realistic haloes, in the context of the halo model of structure formation, and show that it scales as $m_ν^4$ $\times$ relative velocity, and monotonically grows …
It is known observationally that the major axes of galaxy clusters and their brightest cluster galaxies are roughly aligned with each other. To understand the origin of the alignment, we identify 40 cluster-sized dark matter (DM) haloes with masses higher than $5\times10^{13}~M_{\odot}$ and their central galaxies (CGs) at $z\approx 0$ in the Horizon-AGN cosmological hydrodynamical simulation. We trace the progenitors at 50 different epochs between $0<z<5$. We then fit their shapes and orientations with a triaxial ellipsoid model. While the orientations of both DM haloes and CGs change signific…
It was recently demonstrated that small small black holes can act as seeds for nucleating decay of the metastable Higgs vacuum, dramatically increasing the tunneling probability. Any primordial black hole lighter than $4.5 \times 10^{14}$g at formation would have evaporated by now, and in the absence of new physics beyond the standard model, would therefore have entered the mass range in which seeded decay occurs, however, such true vacuum bubbles must percolate in order to completely destroy the false vacuum; this depends on the bubble number density and the rate of expansion of the universe.…
We have performed a series of numerical experiments to investigate how the primordial thermal velocities of fermionic dark matter particles affect the physical and phase space density profiles of the dark matter haloes into which they collect. The initial particle velocities induce central cores in both profiles, which can be understood in the framework of phase space density theory. We find that the maximum coarse-grained phase space density of the simulated haloes (computed in 6 dimensional phase space using the EnBid code) is very close to the theoretical fine-grained upper bound, while the…
Several independent cosmological tests have shown evidences that the energy density of the Universe is dominated by a dark energy component, which cause the present accelerated expansion. The large scale structure formation can be used to probe dark energy models, and the mass function of dark matter haloes is one of the best statistical tools to perform this study. We present here a statistical analysis of mass functions of galaxies under a homogeneous dark energy model, proposed in the work of Percival (2005), using an observational flux-limited X-ray cluster survey, and CMB data from WMAP. …
Despite their ubiquity, the origin of cosmic magnetic fields remains unknown. Various mechanisms have been proposed for their existence including primordial fields generated by inflation, or amplification and injection by compact astrophysical objects. Separating the potential impact of each magnetogenesis scenario on the magnitude and orientation of the magnetic field and their impact on gas dynamics may give insight into the physics that magnetised our Universe. In this work, we demonstrate that because the induction equation and solenoidal constraint are linear with $B$, the contribution fr…
We investigate the impact of the existence of a primordial magnetic field on the filter mass, characterizing the minimum baryonic mass that can form in dark matter (DM) haloes. For masses below the filter mass, the baryon content of DM haloes are severely depressed. The filter mass is the mass when the baryon to DM mass ratio in a halo is equal to half the baryon to DM ratio of the Universe. The filter mass has previously been used in semianalytic calculations of galaxy formation, without taking into account the possible existence of a primordial magnetic field. We examine here its effect on t…
We employ a bias-corrected abundance matching technique to investigate the coevolution of the LCDM dark halo mass function (HMF), the observationally derived velocity dispersion and stellar mass functions (VDF, SMF) of galaxies between z=1 and 0. We use for the first time the evolution of the VDF constrained through strong lensing statistics by Chae (2010) for galaxy-halo abundance matching studies. As a local benchmark we use a couple of z ~ 0 VDFs (a Monte-Carlo realised VDF based on SDSS DR5 and a directly measured VDF based on SDSS DR6). We then focus on connecting the VDF evolution to the…
We investigate the operation of the chemothermal instability in primordial star-forming clouds with a suite of three-dimensional, moving-mesh simulations. In line with previous studies, we find that the gas at the centre of high-redshift minihaloes becomes chemothermally unstable as three-body reactions convert the atomic hydrogen into a fully molecular gas. The competition between the increasing rate at which the gas cools and the increasing optical depth to H2 line emission creates a characteristic dip in the cooling time over the free-fall time on a scale of 100 au. As a result, the free-fa…
Accurate predictions of the abundance and clustering of dark matter haloes play a key role in testing the standard cosmological model. Here, we investigate the accuracy of one of the leading methods of connecting the simulated dark matter haloes with observed galaxies -- the Halo Abundance Matching (HAM) technique. We show how to choose the optimal values of the mass and force resolution in large-volume N-body simulations so that they provide accurate estimates for correlation functions and circular velocities for haloes and their subhaloes -- crucial ingredients of the HAM method. At the 10% …
We study via numerical N-body/SPH chemistry simulations the effects of primordial non-Gaussianities on the formation of the first stars and galaxies, and investigate the impact of supernova feedback in cosmologies with different fnl. Density distributions are biased to higher values, so star formation and the consequent feedback processes take place earlier in high-fnl models and later in low-fnl ones. Mechanical feedback is responsible for shocking and evacuating the gas from star forming sites earlier in the highly non-Gaussian cases, because of the larger bias at high densities. Chemical fe…
An analytical model predicting the growth rates, the absolute growth times and the saturation values of the magnetic field strength within galactic haloes is presented. The analytical results are compared to cosmological MHD simulations of Milky-Way like galactic halo formation performed with the N-body / \textsc{Spmhd} code \textsc{Gadget}. The halo has a mass of $\approx{}3\cdot{}10^{12}$ $M_{\odot}$ and a virial radius of $\approx{}$270 kpc. The simulations in a $Λ$CDM cosmology also include radiative cooling, star formation, supernova feedback and the description of non-ideal MHD. A primor…
We present results of cosmological N-body hydrodynamic chemistry simulations of primordial structure growth and evolution in a scenario with warm dark matter (WDM) having a mass of 3 keV (thermal relic) and compare with a model consisting of standard cold dark matter (CDM). We focus on the high-redshift universe ($z>6$), where the structure formation process should better reflect the primordial (linear) differences in terms of matter power spectrum. We find that early epochs can be exceptional probes of the dark-matter nature. Non-linear WDM power spectra and mass functions are up to 2 dex low…
It has been shown by Shchekinov & Vasiliev2006 (SV06) that HD molecules can be an important cooling agent in high redshift z >10 haloes if they undergo mergers under specific conditions so suitable shocks are created. Here we build upon Prieto et al. (2012) who studied in detail the merger-generated shocks, and show that the conditions for HD cooling can be studied by combining these results with a suite of dark-matter only simulations. We have performed a number of dark matter only simulations from cosmological initial conditions inside boxes with sizes from 1 to 4 Mpc. We look for haloes wit…
Tseliakhovich & Hirata recently discovered that higher-order corrections to the cosmological linear-perturbation theory lead to supersonic coherent baryonic flows just after recombination (i.e. z~1020), with rms velocities of ~30 km/s relative to the underlying dark-matter distribution, on comoving scales of ~<3 Mpc/h. To study the impact of these coherent flows we performed high-resolution N-body plus SPH simulations in boxes of 5.0 and 0.7 Mpc/h, for bulk-flow velocities of 0 (as reference), 30 and 60 km/s. The simulations follow the evolution of cosmic structures by taking into account deta…
We study the Voronoi volume function (VVF) -- the distribution of cell volumes (or inverse local number density) in the Voronoi tessellation of any set of cosmological tracers (galaxies/haloes). We show that the shape of the VVF of biased tracers responds sensitively to physical properties such as halo mass, large-scale environment, substructure and redshift-space effects, making this a hitherto unexplored probe of both primordial cosmology and galaxy evolution. Using convenient summary statistics -- the width, median and a low percentile of the VVF as functions of average tracer number densit…
We study the impact that large-scale perturbations of (i) the matter density and (ii) the primordial gravitational potential with local primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) have on galaxy formation using the IllustrisTNG model. We focus on the linear galaxy bias $b_1$ and the coefficient $b_ϕ$ of the scale-dependent bias induced by PNG, which describe the response of galaxy number counts to these two types of perturbations, respectively. We perform our study using separate universe simulations, in which the effect of the perturbations is mimicked by changes to the cosmological parameters: modified…
We present a new method to identify large scale filaments and apply it to a cosmological simulation. Using positions of haloes above a given mass as node tracers, we look for filaments between them using the positions and masses of all the remaining dark-matter haloes. In order to detect a filament, the first step consists in the construction of a backbone linking two nodes, which is given by a skeleton-like path connecting the highest local dark matter (DM) density traced by non-node haloes. The filament quality is defined by a density and gap parameters characterising its skeleton, and filam…
We present a weak lensing detection of filamentary structures in the cosmic web, combining data from the Kilo-Degree Survey, the Red Cluster Sequence Lensing Survey and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey. The line connecting luminous red galaxies with a separation of $3 - 5\, h^{-1}\text{Mpc}$ is chosen as a proxy for the location of filaments. We measure the average weak lensing shear around $\sim$11,000 candidate filaments selected in this way from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. After nulling the shear induced by the dark matter haloes around each galaxy, we report a $3.4\,σ$ d…
We study structure formation in a set of cosmological simulations to uncover the scales in the initial density field that gave rise to the formation of present-day structures. Our simulations share a common primordial power spectrum (here Lambda-CDM), but the introduction of hierarchical variations of the phase information allows us to systematically study the scales that determine the formation of structure at later times. We consider the variance in z=0 statistics such as the matter power spectrum and halo mass function. We also define a criterion for the existence of individual haloes acros…
We present three reasons for the formation of gravitational bound states of primordial black holes,called holeums,in the early universe.Using Newtonian gravity and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics we find a purely quantum mechanical mass-dependant exclusion property for the nonoverlap of the constituent black holes in a holeum.This ensures that the holeum occupies space just like ordinary matter.A holeum emits only gravitational radiation whose spectrum is an exact analogue of that of a hydrogen atom. A part of this spectrum lies in the region accessible to the detectors being built.The holeu…
Intrinsic alignments of galaxies are a significant astrophysical systematic affecting cosmological constraints from weak gravitational lensing. Obtaining numerical predictions from hydrodynamical simulations of expected survey volumes is expensive, and a cheaper alternative relies on populating large dark matter-only simulations with accurate models of alignments calibrated on smaller hydrodynamical runs. This requires connecting the shapes and orientations of galaxies to those of dark matter haloes and to the large-scale structure. In this paper, we characterise galaxy-halo alignments in the …
We explore the possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) contain electric charge down to the present day. We find that PBHs should hold a non-zero net charge at their formation, due to either Poisson fluctuations at horizon crossing or high-energy particle collisions. Although initial charge configurations are subject to fast discharge processes through particle accretion or quantum particle emission, we show that maximally rotating PBHs could produce magnetic fields able to shield them from discharge. Moreover, given that electrons are the lightest and fastest charge carriers, we show th…
The formation of ultra rare supermassive black holes (SMBHs), with masses of $\mathcal O(10^9\,M_\odot)$, in the first billion years of the Universe remains an open question in astrophysics. At the same time, ultralight dark matter (DM) with mass in the vicinity of $\mathcal O(10^{-20}~\text{eV})$ has been motivated by small scale DM distributions. Though this type of DM is constrained by various astrophysical considerations, certain observations could be pointing to modest evidence for it. We present a model with a confining first order phase transition at $\sim 10$ keV temperatures, facilita…
We explore the possibility that Dark Matter (DM) may be explained by a non-uniform background of approximately stellar-mass clusters of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), by simulating the evolution them from recombination to the present with over 5000 realisations using a Newtonian $ N $-body code. We compute the cluster rate of evaporation, and extract the binary and merged sub-populations along with their parent and merger tree histories, lifetimes and formation rates; the dynamical and orbital parameter profiles, the degree of mass segregation and dynamical friction, and power spectrum of clos…
In two previous papers (Salvador-Solé 2012a,b), it was shown that: i) the typical structural and kinematic properties of haloes in (bottom-up) hierarchical cosmologies endowed with random Gaussian density perturbations of dissipationless collisionless dark matter emerge naturally from the typical properties of peaks in the primordial density field and ii) halo statistics are well described by the peak formalism. In the present paper, we use these results to model halo substructure. Specifically, making use of the peak formalism and the fact that accreting haloes evolve from the inside-out, we …
In order to elucidate the origin of spin in both dark matter and baryons in galaxies, we have performed hydrodynamical simulations from cosmological initial conditions. We study atomic cooling haloes in the redshift range $100 > z > 9$ with masses of order $10^9{\rm M_{\odot}}$ at redshift $z=10$. We assume that the gas has primordial composition and that ${\rm H_2}$-cooling and prior star-formation in the haloes have been suppressed. We present a comprehensive analysis of the gas and dark matter properties of four halos with very low ($λ\approx 0.01$), low ($λ\approx 0.04$), high ($λ\approx 0…
The statistics of primordial curvature fluctuations are our window into the period of inflation, where these fluctuations were generated. To date, the cosmic microwave background has been the dominant source of information about these perturbations. Large scale structure is however from where drastic improvements should originate. In this paper, we explain the theoretical motivations for pursuing such measurements and the challenges that lie ahead. In particular, we discuss and identify theoretical targets regarding the measurement of primordial non-Gaussianity. We argue that when quantified i…
In this paper we measure the angular power spectra $C_\ell$ of three high-redshift large-scale structure probes: the radio sources from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), the quasar catalogue of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Release Six (SDSS DR6 QSOs) and the MegaZ-LRG (DR7), the final SDSS II Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) photometric redshift survey. We perform a global analysis of the constraints on the amplitude of primordial non-Gaussianity from these angular power spectra, as well as from their cross-correlation power spectra with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature map. In particular,…
We analyze the properties of dark matter halos in the cold-plus-warm dark matter cosmologies (CWDM). We study their dependence on the fraction and velocity dispersion of the warm particle, keeping the free-streaming scale fixed. To this end we consider three models with the same free-streaming: (1) a mixture of 90% of CDM and 10% of WDM with the mass 1 keV; (2) a mixture of 50% of CDM and 50% of WDM with the mass 5 keV; and (3) pure WDM with the mass 10 keV. "Warm" particles have rescaled Fermi-Dirac spectrum of primordial velocities (as non-resonantly produced sterile neutrinos would have). W…
Constraining the shape of dark matter haloes using only starlight II. Tests of the technique with objects of known gravitational potential
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias（加那利天体物理研究所）；Universidad de La Laguna（拉古纳大学）；Universidad Nacional del Noroeste de la Prov. de Buenos Aires, UNNOBA, CONICET（布宜诺斯艾利斯省西北国立大学，UNNOBA，CONICET）；University of Virginia（弗吉尼亚大学）
The ability of primordial gas to cool in proto-galactic haloes exposed to Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation is critically dependent on the self-shielding of H_2. We perform radiative transfer calculations of LW line photons, post-processing outputs from three-dimensional adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) simulations of haloes with T_vir > 10^4 K at redshifts around z=10. We calculate the optically thick photodissociation rate numerically, including the effects of density, temperature, and velocity gradients in the gas, as well as line overlap and shielding of H_2 by HI, over a large number of sight-lin…
New York University, Abu Dhabi（纽约大学阿布扎比分校）；Department of Theoretical Physics and Gravitational Wave Science Center, 24 quai E. Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland（日内瓦大学理论物理系与引力波科学中心）
