Testing Modified Dark Matter with Galaxy Clusters: Does Dark Matter know about the Cosmological Constant?

TL;DR

This paper proposes Modified Dark Matter (MDM), a new approach suggesting that dark matter profiles encode information about the cosmological constant, and tests it against galaxy cluster data.

Contribution

The paper introduces MDM, linking dark matter profiles to the cosmological constant, and demonstrates its consistency with observed galaxy cluster mass profiles.

Findings

MDM successfully fits galaxy cluster mass profiles.

Dark matter profiles may encode information about the cosmological constant.

MDM aligns with both cluster and galactic scale observations.

Abstract

We discuss the possibility that the cold dark matter mass profiles contain information on the cosmological constant, and that such information constrains the nature of cold dark matter (CDM). We call this approach Modified Dark Matter (MDM). In particular, we examine the ability of MDM to explain the observed mass profiles of 13 galaxy clusters. Using general arguments from gravitational thermodynamics, we provide a theoretical justification for our MDM mass profile and successfully compare it to the NFW mass profiles both on cluster and galactic scales. Our results suggest that indeed the CDM mass profiles contain information about the cosmological constant in a non-trivial way.