Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dave, Bihag, Goswami, Gaurav
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19664
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909120745963520
author Dave, Bihag
Goswami, Gaurav
author_facet Dave, Bihag
Goswami, Gaurav
contents It is well-known that Dark Matter (DM) inside a satellite galaxy orbiting a host halo experiences a tidal potential. If DM is ultra-light, given its wave-like nature, one expects it to tunnel out of the satellite - if this happens sufficiently quickly, then the satellite will not survive over cosmological timescales, severely constraining this dark matter model. In this paper, we study the effects of the inevitable quartic self-interaction of scalar Ultra-Light Dark Matter (ULDM) on the lifetimes of satellite galaxies by looking for quasi-stationary solutions with outgoing wave boundary conditions. For a satellite with some known core mass and orbital period, we find that, attractive (repulsive) self-interactions decrease (increase) the rate of tunnelling of DM out of it. In particular, for satellite galaxies with core mass $\sim \mathcal{O}(10^7-10^8)\ M_\odot$ and orbital period $\sim \mathcal{O}(1)\ \text{Gyr}$, one can impose constraints on the strength of self-interactions as small as $λ\sim \mathcal{O}(10^{-92})$. For instance, for ULDM mass $m = 10^{-22}\ \text{eV}$, the existence of the Fornax dwarf galaxy necessitates attractive self-interactions with $λ\lesssim -2.12 \times 10^{-91}$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_19664
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ULDM self-interactions, tidal effects and tunnelling out of satellite galaxies
Dave, Bihag
Goswami, Gaurav
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
It is well-known that Dark Matter (DM) inside a satellite galaxy orbiting a host halo experiences a tidal potential. If DM is ultra-light, given its wave-like nature, one expects it to tunnel out of the satellite - if this happens sufficiently quickly, then the satellite will not survive over cosmological timescales, severely constraining this dark matter model. In this paper, we study the effects of the inevitable quartic self-interaction of scalar Ultra-Light Dark Matter (ULDM) on the lifetimes of satellite galaxies by looking for quasi-stationary solutions with outgoing wave boundary conditions. For a satellite with some known core mass and orbital period, we find that, attractive (repulsive) self-interactions decrease (increase) the rate of tunnelling of DM out of it. In particular, for satellite galaxies with core mass $\sim \mathcal{O}(10^7-10^8)\ M_\odot$ and orbital period $\sim \mathcal{O}(1)\ \text{Gyr}$, one can impose constraints on the strength of self-interactions as small as $λ\sim \mathcal{O}(10^{-92})$. For instance, for ULDM mass $m = 10^{-22}\ \text{eV}$, the existence of the Fornax dwarf galaxy necessitates attractive self-interactions with $λ\lesssim -2.12 \times 10^{-91}$.
title ULDM self-interactions, tidal effects and tunnelling out of satellite galaxies
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19664