2026/06/23 by Dao-zhou Wang, Weipeng Lin, Tian-Cheng Luan
Physics and Astronomy · #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ae81a2
Abstract The prediction of the structural properties of dark matter halos is crucial for studies in modern cosmology and galaxy formation. Utilizing a comprehensive suite of N -body simulations spanning diverse cosmologies and box sizes, we derive a universal halo concentration prescription aligned with the excursion set theory framework. The halo peak-height parameter is revised to incorporate the linear growth factor at the halo formation epoch, enhancing its physical relevance to assembly history tracking. For fixed halo mass, we fit the distributions of the halo concentration and revised peak height to lognormal functions to extract their peak values. We find that these peaks follow a universal, tight relation invariant to redshift, box size, initial power spectrum, and cosmology, exhibiting remarkably small scatter. In particular, the relation flattens systematically with increasing revised peak height, approaching an asymptotic value of ∼2.54, consistent with previous reports of a concentration floor. The fitting formulae consistently describe both the mass–concentration and peak height–concentration relations, easily quantifying how these relations depend on redshift and cosmological parameters. This universal framework enables robust prediction of the most probable (peak) halo concentration using our fitting formula or theoretical/semianalytical mass assembly histories. A software package for calculating peak concentrations is publicly available online.