Gravitational Cooling of Self-gravitating Bose Condensates
Abstract
Equilibrium configurations for a self-gravitating scalar field with self-interaction are constructed. The corresponding Schrödinger-Poisson (SP) system is solved using finite differences, assuming spherical symmetry. It is shown that equilibrium configurations of the SP system are late-time attractor solutions for initially quite arbitrary density profiles, which relax and virialize through the emission of scalar field bursts-a process dubbed gravitational cooling. Among other potential applications, these results indicate that scalar field dark matter models (in their different flavors) tolerate the introduction of a self-interaction term in the SP equations. This study can be useful in exploring models in which dark matter in galaxies is not pointlike.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- July 2006
- DOI:
- 10.1086/504508
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0603613
- Bibcode:
- 2006ApJ...645..814G
- Keywords:
-
- Cosmology: Dark Matter;
- Galaxies: Evolution;
- Galaxies: Formation;
- Galaxies: Halos;
- Astrophysics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 10 aastex pages, 12 eps figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ