How Stellar Stream Torsion may reveal aspherical Dark Matter Haloes

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bariego-Quintana, Adriana
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917667699425280
author Bariego-Quintana, Adriana
author_facet Bariego-Quintana, Adriana
contents Flat rotation curves follow from elongated Dark Matter distributions, as shown by our earlier competitive fits to the SPARC database. Intending to probe that distortion of the DM halo one needs observables not contained by the galactic plane. Stellar streams are caused by tidal stretching of massive substructures such as satellite dwarf galaxies, and would lie on a plane should the DM-halo gravitational field be spherically symmetric. But if the field does not display such spherical symmetry, stellar trajectories, as well as stellar streams, should torsion out of the plane. This is where the torsion of the stream can be of use: it is a local observable that measures the deviation from planarity of a curve; thus, it quantifies how noncentral the gravitational potential is. We have performed small simulations to confirm that indeed a galactic central force produces negligible torsion, and quantified the torsion for prolate haloes instead. Examining observational data, we select several streams at large distance from the galactic center, as most promising for the study, and by means of helicoidal fits extract their differential torsion. We see that their torsion is much larger than expected for a central spherical bulb alone, pointing to an elongated Milky Way halo.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_09678
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How Stellar Stream Torsion may reveal aspherical Dark Matter Haloes
Bariego-Quintana, Adriana
Astrophysics of Galaxies
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Flat rotation curves follow from elongated Dark Matter distributions, as shown by our earlier competitive fits to the SPARC database. Intending to probe that distortion of the DM halo one needs observables not contained by the galactic plane. Stellar streams are caused by tidal stretching of massive substructures such as satellite dwarf galaxies, and would lie on a plane should the DM-halo gravitational field be spherically symmetric. But if the field does not display such spherical symmetry, stellar trajectories, as well as stellar streams, should torsion out of the plane. This is where the torsion of the stream can be of use: it is a local observable that measures the deviation from planarity of a curve; thus, it quantifies how noncentral the gravitational potential is. We have performed small simulations to confirm that indeed a galactic central force produces negligible torsion, and quantified the torsion for prolate haloes instead. Examining observational data, we select several streams at large distance from the galactic center, as most promising for the study, and by means of helicoidal fits extract their differential torsion. We see that their torsion is much larger than expected for a central spherical bulb alone, pointing to an elongated Milky Way halo.
title How Stellar Stream Torsion may reveal aspherical Dark Matter Haloes
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.09678