A natural boundary of dark matter haloes revealed around the minimum bias and maximum infall locations

TL;DR

This paper identifies a characteristic depletion radius around dark matter haloes, revealed through bias and velocity profiles, which marks the boundary of active accretion and is crucial for understanding halo structure.

Contribution

It introduces a new boundary definition for dark matter haloes based on bias troughs and infall rates, linking these to splashback orbits and large-scale structure models.

Findings

Bias profile exhibits a universal trough indicating halo depletion.

Depletion radius is about 2.5 times the virial radius, depending on halo mass and environment.

Inner depletion radius encloses a higher density region, smaller by 10-20%.

Abstract

We explore the boundary of dark matter haloes through their bias and velocity profiles. Using cosmological $N$-body simulations, we show that the bias profile exhibits a ubiquitous trough that can be interpreted as created by halo accretion that depletes material around the boundary. The inner edge of the active depletion region is marked by the location of the maximum mass inflow rate that separates a growing halo from the draining environment. This inner depletion radius can also be interpreted as the radius enclosing a highly complete population of splashback orbits, and matches the optimal exclusion radius in a halo model of the large-scale structure. The minimum of the bias trough defines a characteristic depletion radius, which is located within the infall region bounded by the inner depletion radius and the turnaround radius, while approaching the turnaround radius in low mass haloes that have stopped mass accretion. The characteristic depletion radius depends the most on halo mass and environment. It is approximately $2.5$ times the virial radius and encloses an average density of $\sim 40$ times the background density of the universe, independent on halo mass but dependent on other halo properties. The inner depletion radius is smaller by $10-20\%$ and encloses an average density of $\sim 63$ times the background density. These radii open a new window for studying the properties of haloes.