http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.05971
Cosmological N-body simulations predict dark matter (DM) haloes with steep central cusps (e.g. NFW), which contradicts observations of gas kinematics in low mass galaxies that imply the existence of shallow DM cores. Baryonic processes such as adiabatic contraction and gas outflows can, in principle, alter the initial DM density profile, yet their relative contributions to the halo transformation remain uncertain. Recent high resolution, cosmological hydrodynamic simulations (Di Cintio et al. 2014, DC14) predict that inner density profiles depend systematically on the ratio of stellar to DM mass (M$_*$/M$_{\rm halo}$). Using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach, we test the NFW and the M$_*$/M$_{\rm halo}$-dependent DC14 halo models against a sample of 147 galaxy rotation curves from the new SPARC data set. These galaxies all have extended HI rotation curves from radio interferometry as well as accurate stellar mass density profiles from near-infrared photometry. The DC14 halo profile provides markedly better fits to the data than does the NFW profile. Unlike NFW, the DC14 halo parameters found in our rotation curve fits naturally recover both the mass-concentration relation predicted by $\Lambda$CDM and the stellar mass-halo mass relation inferred from abundance matching. Halo profiles modified by baryonic processes are therefore more consistent with expectations from $\Lambda$CDM cosmology and provide better fits to galaxy rotation curves across a wide range of galaxy properties than do halo models which neglect baryonic physics. Our results reconcile observations of galaxies with $\Lambda$CDM expectations, offering a solution to the decade long cusp-core discrepancy.
H. Katz, F. Lelli, S. McGaugh, et. al.
Fri, 20 May 16
10/55
Comments: 11 Pages, 7 Figures, Submitted to MNRAS
You must be logged in to post a comment.