Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session DD01: V: Poster Session I (8:30am-9:30 am, PST)
8:30 AM,
Monday, March 20, 2023
Abstract: DD01.00011 : Investigating Fuzzy Dark Matter through Stellar Streams
Presenter:
Claire Recamier
(Yale University)
Author:
Claire Recamier
(Yale University)
Fuzzy Dark Matter, an alternative to the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model, is an axion- like particle with a mass of m < e−22 eV, or e-31 times the mass of a proton, and therefore exhibits quantum behaviors. This dark matter candidate theoretically solves many of the small-scale structure problems where typical CDM fails, such as the core-cusp problem.
Galaxies are orbited by gravitationally self-bound groups of stars called globular clusters. The potential of the galaxy periodically pulls stars out of the globular cluster system and into orbit with the galaxy. As a result, some globular clusters are accompanied by thin trails of stripped stars, called stellar streams, which have different orbits and energies than their progenitors.
We use stellar streams as an observational probe into the nature of the dark matter particle. Kinematically cold stellar streams in smooth potentials create thin, long strings of stars. However, existing stellar streams have some width and visible perturbations in density fluctuations and gaps, caused by gravitational interactions with dark matter. In fact, the thin structure of stellar streams results in a sensitivity to gravitational interactions with dark matter, which are recorded as perturbations in the streams’ densities.
In an overall effort to constrain the mass of the dark matter particle, we aim to simulate the path of stellar streams in different potentials. We want to generate streams in CDM and fuzzy dark matter potentials with identical density profiles, to isolate how the nature of the dark matter particles changes interactions with stellar streams. From these simulations, we hope to be able to characterize how perturbations from a cold dark matter halo differ from perturbations from a fuzzy dark matter halo.
As for generating the stellar streams, we follow the streakline approach used by Bonaca et al. in “Milky Way Mass and Potential Recovery Using Tidal Streams in a Realistic Halo.” The streakline approach evaluates at every timestep the force experienced by the globular cluster due to the galactic potential, and updates position and velocity of the globular cluster accordingly. It also ejects a star and updates the positions and velocity of stars in the streams at every timestep, allowing us to track the motion of a globular cluster and its accompanying stream as it orbits the galaxy.
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