Detecting the Disruption of Dark-Matter Halos with Stellar Streams
Abstract
Narrow stellar streams in the Milky Way halo are uniquely sensitive to dark-matter subhalos, but many of these subhalos may be tidally disrupted. I calculate the interaction between stellar and dark-matter streams using analytical and N -body calculations, showing that disrupting objects can be detected as low-concentration subhalos. Through this effect, we can constrain the lumpiness of the halo as well as the orbit and present position of individual dark-matter streams. This will have profound implications for the formation of halos and for direct- and indirect-detection dark-matter searches.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- March 2016
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.121301
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1512.00452
- Bibcode:
- 2016PhRvL.116l1301B
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
- E-Print:
- PRL in press