Cosmological Simulations of Two-Component Wave Dark Matter

TL;DR

This study explores two-component wave dark matter through cosmological simulations, revealing how different mass ratios affect soliton formation, structure, and density profiles, and demonstrating increased model flexibility.

Contribution

It introduces the first cosmological simulations of two-component wave dark matter with distinct particle masses, analyzing soliton coexistence and structural differences.

Findings

Major and minor components can coexist with comparable masses for certain ratios.

The soliton peak density decreases, smoothing the transition and rotation curves.

A toy model explains the difficulty of soliton formation in hot environments.

Abstract

Wave (fuzzy) dark matter ($\psi$DM) consists of ultralight bosons, featuring a solitonic core within a granular halo. Here we extend $\psi$DM to two components, with distinct particle masses $m$ and coupled only through gravity, and investigate the resulting soliton-halo structure via cosmological simulations. Specifically, we assume $\psi$DM contains $75$ per cent major component and $25$ per cent minor component, fix the major-component particle mass to $m_{\rm major}=1\times10^{-22}\,{\rm eV}$, and explore two different minor-component particle masses with $m_{\rm major}:m_{\rm minor}=3:1$ and $1:3$, respectively. For $m_{\rm major}:m_{\rm minor}=3:1$, we find that (i) the major- and minor-component solitons coexist, have comparable masses, and are roughly concentric. (ii) The soliton peak density is significantly lower than the single-component counterpart, leading to a smoother soliton-to-halo transition and rotation curve. (iii) The combined soliton mass of both components follows the same single-component core-halo mass relation. In dramatic contrast, for $m_{\rm major}:m_{\rm minor}=1:3$, a minor-component soliton cannot form with the presence of a stable major-component soliton; the total density profile, for both halo and soliton, is thus dominated by the major component and closely follows the single-component case. To support this finding, we propose a toy model illustrating that it is difficult to form a soliton in a hot environment associated with a deep gravitational potential. The work demonstrates the extra flexibility added to the multi-component $\psi$DM model can resolve observational tensions over the single-component model while retaining its key features.