Cosmological simulations of mixed ultralight dark matter

Alex Laguë, Bodo Schwabe, Renée Hložek, David J. E. Marsh, and Keir K. Rogers
Phys. Rev. D 109, 043507 – Published 5 February 2024

Abstract

The era of precision cosmology allows us to test the composition of the dark matter. Mixed ultralight or fuzzy dark matter (FDM) is a cosmological model with dark matter composed of a combination of particles of mass m1020eV, with an astrophysical de Broglie wavelength, and particles with a negligible wavelength sharing the properties of cold dark matter (CDM). In this work, we simulate cosmological volumes with a dark matter wave function for the ultralight component coupled gravitationally to CDM particles. We investigate the impact of a mixture of CDM and FDM in various proportions (0%, 1%, 10%, 50%, 100%) and for ultralight particle masses ranging over five orders of magnitude (2.5×1025eV2.5×1021eV). To track the evolution of density perturbations in the nonlinear regime, we adapt the simulation code axionyx to solve the CDM dynamics coupled to a FDM wave function obeying the Schrödinger-Poisson equations. We obtain the nonlinear power spectrum and study the impact of the wave effects on the growth of structure on different scales. We confirm that the steady-state solution of the Schrödinger-Poisson system holds at the center of halos in the presence of a CDM component when it composes 50% or less of the dark matter but find no stable density core when the FDM accounts for 10% or less of the dark matter. We implement a modified friends-of-friends halo finder and find good agreement between the observed halo abundance and the predictions from the adapted halo model axionhmcode.

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  • Received 12 December 2023
  • Accepted 7 January 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.043507

© 2024 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nonlinear DynamicsParticles & FieldsGravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Alex Laguë*

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6396, USA; Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada; Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada; and David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada

Bodo Schwabe

  • Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza and Institut für Astrophysik, Universität Göttingen, Germany

Renée Hložek

  • Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada and David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada

David J. E. Marsh

  • Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom

Keir K. Rogers

  • Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada

  • *alague@sas.upenn.edu

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Vol. 109, Iss. 4 — 15 February 2024

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