The MUSE-Faint survey. III. Constraining scalar field dark matter with Antlia B

TL;DR

This study uses stellar velocities in the dwarf galaxy Antlia B to constrain scalar field dark matter properties, finding limits on the self-interaction length scale that challenge its role in creating galaxy cores.

Contribution

First application of MUSE-Faint data to model dark matter in Antlia B with SFDM, deriving new constraints on self-interaction parameters.

Findings

Constrained the self-coupling strength of SFDM to be very weak.

Found Antlia B's mass and concentration consistent with existing models.

Ruled out SFDM as the cause of dwarf galaxy cores in the Local Group.

Abstract

Aims. We use the stellar line-of-sight velocities of Antlia B (Ant B), a faint dwarf galaxy in the NGC 3109 association, to derive constraints on the fundamental properties of scalar field dark matter (SFDM), which was originally proposed to solve the small-scale problems faced by cold dark matter models. Methods. We used the first spectroscopic observations of Ant B, a distant (d $\sim$ 1.35 Mpc) faint dwarf ($M_\text{V} = -9.7$, $M_\star \sim 8\times10^5$M$_\odot$), from MUSE-Faint, a survey of ultra-faint dwarfs conducted using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer. By measuring the line-of-sight velocities of stars in the $1'\times 1'$ field of view, we identified 127 stars as members of Ant B, which enabled us to model its dark matter density profile with the Jeans modelling code GravSphere. We implemented a model for SFDM into GravSphere and used this to place constraints on the self-coupling strength of this model. Results. We find a virial mass of ${M_{200} \approx 1.66^{+2.51}_{-0.92}\times 10^9}$ $M_\odot$ and a concentration parameter of ${c_{200}\approx 17.38^{+6.06}_{-4.20}}$ for Ant B. These results are consistent with the mass-concentration relations in the literature. We constrain the characteristic length scale of the repulsive self-interaction $R_{\text{TF}}$ of the SFDM model to $R_{\text{TF}} \lesssim 180$ pc ($68\%$ confidence level), which translates to a self-coupling strength of $\frac{g}{m^2c^4}\lesssim 5.2 \times 10^{-20}$ eV$^{-1}$cm$^3$. The constraint on the characteristic length scale of the repulsive self-interaction is inconsistent with the value required to match observations of the cores of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group, suggesting that the cored density profiles of those galaxies are not caused by SFDM.