Analysis of shape and angular orientation parameters of velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation signals in Galactic Centers for FIRE simulations

TL;DR

This study uses FIRE-2 simulations to analyze the shape and orientation of dark matter annihilation signals in the Milky Way, revealing more spherical and plane-aligned emission patterns than dark matter-only models.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the expected shape and orientation of dark matter annihilation signals considering baryonic effects, contrasting with previous dark matter-only predictions.

Findings

Emission contours are well-fit by ellipses with a consistent axis ratio of 0.8.

Major axes of emission are aligned with the galactic plane within a few degrees.

Hydrodynamical simulations match Fermi-LAT observations, unlike dark matter-only models.

Abstract

We use FIRE-2 zoom cosmological simulations of Milky Way size galaxy halos to characterize the shape of the J-factor emission signal on the sky. We find that, at a fixed dJ/d{\Omega} contour,the shape is well-fit by an ellipse, with semi-major axis Rmajor and semi-minor axis Rminor measured in degrees on the sky. We use least squares fitting to fit ellipses to the J-factor emission, viewed from the solar location. The ratio of minor to major axes (Rminor/Rmajor) allows us to characterize the shape of each contour, with ratio 1.0 corresponding to circular/spherical emission. These results provide new expectations for the shape of dark matter annihilation emission signals we might expect to see if dark matter is annihilating with its own anti-particle. We find that both the shape and angular orientation of the emission signal is different than results predict from dark matter only simulations. In terms of shape, we find that the ratios of semi-minor to semi-major axis is always consistently at 0.8, revealing a consistent circular emission shape, whereas with dark matter only emission signals the range of ratios from halo to halo is broader, and often closer to 0.5, showing a much more elliptical shape in general. In terms of angular orientation, we find that the major axis of the J-factor emission signal maps for FIRE halos are consistently aligned with the galactic plane within a few degrees, meaning that excess emission out of the plane would be hard to explain with a dark matter annihilation signal. However, we also find that the expected emission signal would be consistent with Fermi-LAT measurements showing a galactic center excess in full hydrodynamical simulations with stars and gas included, while dark-matter-only simulations do not produce the expected signal.