Sownak Bose

The mass–concentration–redshift relation of cold and warm dark matter haloes.

We use a suite of cosmological simulations to study the mass–concentration–redshift relation, c(M, z), of dark matter haloes. Our simulations include standard Λ-cold dark matter (CDM) models, and additional runs with truncated power spectra, consistent with a thermal warm dark matter (WDM) scenario. We find that the mass profiles of CDM and WDM haloes are self-similar and well approximated by the Einasto profile. The c(M, z) relation of CDM haloes is monotonic: concentrations decrease with increasing virial mass at fixed redshift, and decrease with increasing redshift at fixed mass. The mass accretion histories (MAHs) of CDM haloes are also scale-free, and can be used to infer concentrations directly. These results do not apply to WDM haloes: their MAHs are not scale-free because of the characteristic scale imposed by the power spectrum suppression. Further, the WDM c(M, z) relation is non-monotonic: concentrations peak at a mass scale dictated by the truncation scale, and decrease at higher and lower masses. We show that the assembly history of a halo can still be used to infer its concentration, provided that the total mass of its progenitors is considered (the ‘collapsed mass history’; CMH), rather than just that of its main ancestor. This exploits the scale-free nature of CMHs to derive a simple scaling that reproduces the mass–concentration–redshift relation of both CDM and WDM haloes over a vast range of halo masses and redshifts. Our model therefore provides a robust account of the mass, redshift, cosmology and power spectrum dependence of dark matter halo concentrations.

The Copernicus Complexio : statistical properties of warm dark matter haloes

The recent detection of a 3.5 keV X-ray line from the centres of galaxies and clusters by Bulbul et al. (2014a) and Boyarsky et al. (2014a) has been interpreted as emission from the decay of 7 keV sterile neutrinos which could make up the (warm) dark matter (WDM). As part of the COpernicus COmplexio (COCO) programme, we investigate the properties of dark matter haloes formed in a high-resolution cosmological N -body simulation from initial conditions similar to those expected in a universe in which the dark matter consists of 7 keV sterile neutrinos. This simulation and its cold dark matter (CDM) counterpart have 13:4bn particles, each of mass 10 5 h 1 M , providing detailed information about halo structure and evolution down to dwarf galaxy mass scales. Non-linear structure formation on small scales (M200 <2 10 9 h 1 M ) begins slightly later in COCO-WARM than in COCO-COLD. The halo mass function at the present day in the WDM model begins to drop below its CDM counterpart at a mass 2 10 9 h 1 M and declines very rapidly towards lower masses so that there are five times fewer haloes of mass M200 = 10 8 h 1 M in COCO-WARM than in COCO-COLD. Halo concentrations on dwarf galaxy scales are correspondingly smaller in COCO-WARM, and we provide a simple functional form that describes its evolution with redshift. The shapes of haloes are similar in the two cases, but the smallest haloes in COCO-WARM rotate slightly more slowly than their CDM counterparts.

The Copernicus Complexio: a high-resolution view of the small-scale Universe

We introduce Copernicus Complexio (COCO), a high-resolution cosmological N-body simulation of structure formation in the ΛCDM model. COCO follows an approximately spherical region of radius ∼17.4 h−1 Mpc embedded in a much larger periodic cube that is followed at lower resolution. The high-resolution volume has a particle mass of 1.135 × 105 h−1 M⊙ (60 times higher than the Millennium-II simulation). COCO gives the dark matter halo mass function over eight orders of magnitude in halo mass; it forms ∼60 haloes of galactic size, each resolved with about 10 million particles. We confirm the power-law character of the subhalo mass function, , down to a reduced subhalo mass Msub/M200 ≡ μ = 10−6, with a best-fitting power-law index, s = 0.94, for hosts of mass 〈M200〉 = 1012 h−1 M⊙. The concentration–mass relation of COCO haloes deviates from a single power law for masses M200 < afew × 108 h−1 M⊙, where it flattens, in agreement with results by Sanchez-Conde et al. The host mass invariance of the reduced maximum circular velocity function of subhaloes, ν ≡ Vmax/V200, hinted at in previous simulations, is clearly demonstrated over five orders of magnitude in host mass. Similarly, we find that the average, normalized radial distribution of subhaloes is approximately universal (i.e. independent of subhalo mass), as previously suggested by the Aquarius simulations of individual haloes. Finally, we find that at fixed physical subhalo size, subhaloes in lower mass hosts typically have lower central densities than those in higher mass hosts.

Planes of satellite galaxies: when exceptions are the rule

The detection of planar structures within the satellite systems of both the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) has been reported as being in stark contradiction to the predictions of the standard cosmological model (Λ cold dark matter – ΛCDM). Given the ambiguity in defining a planar configuration, it is unclear how to interpret the low incidence of the MW and M31 planes in ΛCDM. We investigate the prevalence of satellite planes around galactic mass haloes identified in high-resolution cosmological simulations. We find that planar structures are very common, and that ∼10 per cent of ΛCDM haloes have even more prominent planes than those present in the Local Group. While ubiquitous, the planes of satellite galaxies show a large diversity in their properties. This precludes using one or two systems as small-scale probes of cosmology, since a large sample of satellite systems is needed to obtain a good measure of the object-to-object variation. This very diversity has been misinterpreted as a discrepancy between the satellite planes observed in the Local Group and ΛCDM predictions. In fact, ∼10 per cent of ΛCDM galactic haloes have planes of satellites that are as infrequent as the MW and M31 planes. The look-elsewhere effect plays an important role in assessing the detection significance of satellite planes and accounting for it leads to overestimating the significance level by a factor of 30 and 100 for the MW and M31 systems, respectively.

Modified Gravity N-body Code Comparison Project

Self-consistent N-body simulations of modified gravity models are a key ingredient to obtain rigorous constraints on deviations from general relativity using large-scale structure observations. This paper provides the first detailed comparison of the results of different N-body codes for the f (R), Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati and Symmetron models, starting from the same initial conditions. We find that the fractional deviation of the matter power spectrum from Lambda cold dark matter agrees to better than 1 per cent up to k ˜ 5-10 h Mpc-1 between the different codes. These codes are thus able to meet the stringent accuracy requirements of upcoming observational surveys. All codes are also in good agreement in their results for the velocity divergence power spectrum, halo abundances and halo profiles. We also test the quasi-static limit, which is employed in most modified gravity N-body codes, for the Symmetron model for which the most significant non-static effects among the models considered are expected. We conclude that this limit is a very good approximation for all of the observables considered here.

Constraints on the identity of the dark matter from strong gravitational lenses

The cold dark matter (CDM) cosmological model unambiguously predicts that a large number of haloes should survive as subhaloes when they are accreted into a larger halo. The CDM model would be ruled out if such substructures were shown not to exist. By contrast, if the dark matter consists of warm particles (WDM), then below a threshold mass that depends on the particle mass far fewer substructures would be present. Finding subhaloes below a certain mass would then rule out warm particle masses below some value. Strong gravitational lensing provides a clean method to measure the subhalo mass function through distortions in the structure of Einstein rings and giant arcs.Using mock lensing observations constructed from high-resolution N-body simulations, we show that measurements of approximately 100 strong lens systems with a detection limit of 10^7h−1M⊙ would clearly distinguish CDM from WDM in the case where this consists of 7 keV sterile neutrinos such as those that might be responsible for the 3.5 keV X-ray emission line recently detected in galaxies and clusters.

Satellite galaxies in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation with sterile neutrino dark matter

The sterile neutrino is a viable darkmatter candidate that can be produced in the early Universe via non-equilibrium processes, and would therefore possess a highly non-thermal spectrum of primordial velocities. In this paper we analyse the process of structure formation with this class of dark matter particles. To this end we construct primordial dark matter power spectra as a function of the lepton asymmetry, L-6, that is present in the primordial plasma and leads to resonant sterile neutrino production. We compare these power spectra with those of thermally produced dark matter particles and show that resonantly produced sterile neutrinos are much colder than their thermal relic counterparts. We also demonstrate that the shape of these power spectra is not determined by the free-streaming scale alone. We then use the power spectra as an input for semi-analytic models of galaxy formation in order to predict the number of luminous satellite galaxies in a Milky Way-like halo. By assuming that the mass of the Milky Way halo must be no more than 2 x 10(12) M-circle dot (the adopted upper bound based on current astronomical observations) we are able to constrain the value of L-6 for Ms <= 8 keV. We also show that the range of L-6 that is in best agreement with the 3.5 keV line (if produced by decays of 7 keV sterile neutrino) requires that the Milky Way halo has a mass no smaller than 1.5 x 10(12) M-circle dot. Finally, we compare the power spectra obtained by direct integration of the Boltzmann equations for a non-resonantly produced sterile neutrino with the fitting formula of Viel et al. and find that the latter significantly underestimates the power amplitude on scales relevant to satellite galaxies.

Testing the quasi-static approximation in f(R) gravity simulations

Numerical simulations in modified gravity have commonly been performed under the quasi-static approximation -- that is, by neglecting the effect of time derivatives in the equation of motion of the scalar field that governs the fifth force in a given modified gravity theory. To test the validity of this approximation, we analyse the case of

Substructure and galaxy formation in the Copernicus Complexio warm dark matter simulations

f(R)

The extraordinary amount of substructure in the Hubble Frontier Fields cluster Abell 2744

gravity beyond this quasi-static limit, by considering effects, if any, these terms have in the matter and velocity divergence cosmic fields. To this end, we use the adaptive mesh refinement code ECOSMOG to study three variants (