2018/01/31 by Xiaolong Du, Bodo Schwabe, Jens C. Niemeyer +2 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Geology #Paleontology #Physics #Tidal flat #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.063507
published as Phys. Rev. D 97, 063507 (2018) · 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in PRD
arxiv created 2018/03/07 · openalex publication_date 2018/03/07 · arxiv updated 2018/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study tidal stripping of fuzzy dark matter (FDM) subhalo cores using simulations of the Schr"odinger-Poisson equations and analyze the dynamics of tidal disruption, highlighting the differences with standard cold dark matter. Mass loss outside of the tidal radius forces the core to relax into a less compact configuration, lowering the tidal radius. As the characteristic radius of a solitonic core scales inversely with its mass, tidal stripping results in a runaway effect and rapid tidal disruption of the core once its central density drops below 4.5 times the average density of the host within the orbital radius. Additionally, we find that the core is deformed into a tidally locked ellipsoid with increasing eccentricities until it is completely disrupted. Using the core mass loss rate, we compute the minimum mass of cores that can survive several orbits for different FDM particle masses and compare it with observed masses of satellite galaxies in the Milky Way.