The infall of cold dark matter onto a galaxy produces cold collisionless flows and caustics in its halo. If a signal is found in the cavity detector of dark matter axions, the flows will be readily apparent as peaks in the energy spectrum of photons from axion conversion, allowing the densities, velocity vectors and velocity dispersions of the flows to be determined. We discuss the evolution of velocity dispersion along cold collisionless flows in one and two dimensions. A technique is presented for obtaining the leading behavior of the velocity dispersion near caustics. The results are used to derive an upper limit on the energy dispersion of the big flow from the sharpness of its nearby caustic and a prediction for the dispersions in its velocity components.

• Received 18 November 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.103509