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Cold dark matter heats up

Nature volume 506, pages 171–178 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

A principal discovery in modern cosmology is that standard model particles comprise only 5 per cent of the mass-energy budget of the Universe. In the ΛCDM paradigm, the remaining 95 per cent consists of dark energy (Λ) and cold dark matter. ΛCDM is being challenged by its apparent inability to explain the low-density ‘cores’ of dark matter measured at the centre of galaxies, where centrally concentrated high-density ‘cusps’ were predicted. But before drawing conclusions, it is necessary to include the effect of gas and stars, historically seen as passive components of galaxies. We now understand that these can inject heat energy into the cold dark matter through a coupling based on rapid gravitational potential fluctuations, explaining the observed low central densities.

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Figure 1: Outflowing gas is ubiquitous around galaxies.
Figure 2: Constant-density cores of dark matter in dwarf galaxies.
Figure 3: Dark matter cores are only generated in sufficiently bright galaxies.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S.-H. Oh, S. White, M. Pettini, C. Martin, M. Walker, J. Peñarrubia, A. Brooks, T. Treu, R. Ellis, J. Wadsley and L. Randall for discussions and comments on an early draft. A.P. acknowledges support from the Oxford Martin School and Royal Society. F.G. acknowledges support from HST GO-1125 and NSF AST-0908499.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK,

    Andrew Pontzen

  2. Oxford Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK ,

    Andrew Pontzen

  3. Balliol College, University of Oxford, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BJ, UK ,

    Andrew Pontzen

  4. Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    Fabio Governato

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A.P. and F.G. jointly wrote the Review.

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Pontzen, A., Governato, F. Cold dark matter heats up. Nature 506, 171–178 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12953

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