Heating of galactic gas by dark matter annihilation in ultracompact minihalos
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Clark, HA
Iwanus, N
Elahi, PJ
Lewis, GF
Scott, P
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The existence of substructure in halos of annihilating dark matter would be expected to substantially boost the rate at which annihilation occurs. Ultracompact minihalos of dark matter (UCMHs) are one of the more extreme examples of this. The boosted annihilation can inject significant amounts of energy into the gas of a galaxy over its lifetime. Here we determine the impact of the boost factor from UCMH substructure on the heating of galactic gas in a Milky Way-type galaxy, by means of N-body simulation. If 1% of the dark matter exists as UCMHs, the corresponding boost factor can be of order 105. For reasonable values of the relevant parameters (annihilation cross section 3×10−26 cm3 s−1, dark matter mass 100 GeV, 10% heating efficiency), we show that the presence of UCMHs at the 0.1% level would inject enough energy to eject significant amounts of gas from the halo, potentially preventing star formation within ~1 kpc of the halo centre.
Date Issued
2017-05-25
Date Acceptance
2017-05-15
Citation
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2017, 2017 (5)
ISSN
1475-7516
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Volume
2017
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
©2017 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics, Particles & Fields
Physics
cosmological simulations
dark matter simulations
feedback in galaxies
particle physics - cosmology connection
PRIMORDIAL STAR-FORMATION
BULGE-HALO MODELS
1ST STARS
INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM
GALAXIES
EVOLUTION
UNIVERSE
SUBSTRUCTURE
CONSTRAINTS
IMPACT
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
048