Shallowed cusp slope of dark matter in disc galaxy formation through clump clusters

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to show that the clumpy phase of baryonic matter in disc galaxy formation results in a shallower dark matter density profile in the galaxy's center, contrasting with previous assumptions of steeper cusps.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the clumpy baryonic phase during disc galaxy formation can naturally produce a shallower dark matter cusp, highlighting a new mechanism involving dynamical friction and halo heating.

Findings

Clumpy baryonic phase leads to shallower dark matter profiles.

Dynamical friction causes clumps to fall inward, heating the halo.

Simulation confirms the effect is not a numerical artifact.

Abstract

Cusp-core problem is a controversial problem on galactic dark matter haloes. Cosmological N-body simulations has demonstrated that galactic dark matter haloes have a cuspy density profile at the centre. However, baryonic physics may affect the dark matter density profile. For example, it was suggested that adiabatic contraction of baryonic gas makes the dark matter cusp steeper. However, it is still an open question if the gas falls into the galactic centre in smooth adiabatic manner. Recent numerical studies suggested that disc galaxies might experience clumpy phase in their early stage of the disc formation, which could also explain clump clusters and chain galaxies observed in high redshift Universe. In this letter, using numerical simulations with an isolated model, we study how the dark matter halo responds to these clumpy nature of baryon component in disc galaxy formation through the clump cluster phase. Our simulation demonstrates that such clumpy phase leads to a shallower density profile of the dark matter halo in the central region while clumps fall into the centre due to dynamical friction. This mechanism helps to make the central dark matter density profile shallower in the galaxies whose virial mass is as large as 5.0*10^11 solar masses. This phenomenon is caused by reaction to dynamical friction of the stellar clumps against the dark matter halo. The halo draws the clumps into the galactic centre, while kinematically heated by the clumps. We additionally run a dark matter only simulation excluding baryonic component and confirm that the resultant shallower density profile is not due to numerical artifact in the simulation, such as two-body relaxation.