Self Interacting Dark Matter and Baryons

Self Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) is a cosmologically consistent alternative theory to Cold Dark Matter (CDM). SIDM is motivated as a solution to solve problems of the CDM model on small scales including the core/cusp problem, the missing satellites, and halo triaxiality. Each of these problems has secular astrophysical solutions, however taken together and along with suggestions from dark matter (DM) particle physics it is interesting to place constraints on how strong a self interaction would have to be for us to observe it and conversely the null hypothesis of whether we can rule out SIDM. We use high resolution cosmological simulations to compare evolution of stellar populations and (DM) components of dwarf galaxies. Our advanced smooth particle hydrodynamics N-body simulations combine SIDM with baryon physics including star formation, feedback recipes, metal line cooling, UV background, and thermal diffusion that eliminates artificial surface gas tension. We find for a constant SIDM cross section of 2 cm² g^-1 that DM interactions alone are not significant enough to create cores in dwarf galaxies and for low mass (V_peak= 25 km s^-1) galaxies the introduction of SIDM fails to decrease the DM central density. Our simulations with star formation feedback are in good agreement with observational estimates of Local Group dwarfs. The lower mass (below 10⁸ M_⊙) halos have inefficient SF, late formation time, and less DM interactions thus small field halos in CDM and SIDM remain cuspy. We conclude that constant cross section SIDM of 2 cm² g^-1 would be close to unobservable in dwarf galaxies and yet at the same time this cross section is already larger than some observational constraints found in larger (higher velocity) systems. We conclude that to differentiate between SIDM and CDM in an observationally detectable and astrophysically consistent manner a velocity dependent cross section that peaks for halos with small peak velocities will be necessary.