The missing massive satellites of the Milky Way

By Jie-Shuang Wang, Carlos S. Frenk, J. Navarro, Liang Gao, T. Sawala. 2012

171 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent studies suggest that only three of the 12 brightest satellites of the Milky Way (MW) inhabit dark matter haloes with maximum circular velocity, Vmax, exceeding ∼30 km s−1. This is in apparent contradiction with the Λ cold dark matter (CDM) simulations of the Aquarius Project, which suggest that MW-sized haloes should have at least eight subhaloes with Vmax > 30 km s−1. The absence of luminous satellites in such massive subhaloes is thus puzzling and may present a challenge to the ΛCDM paradigm. We note, however, that the number of massive subhaloes depends sensitively on the (poorly known) virial mass of the MW, and that their scarcity makes estimates of their abundance from a small simulation set like Aquarius uncertain. We use the Millennium Simulation series and the invariance of the scaled subhalo velocity function (i.e. the number of subhaloes as a function of ν, the ratio of the subhalo Vmax to the host halo virial velocity, V200) to secure improved estimates of the abundance of rare massive subsystems. In the range 0.1 ν) is approximately Poisson distributed about an average given by 〈Nsub〉 = 10.2 (ν/0.15)−3.11. This is slightly lower than that in Aquarius haloes, but consistent with recent results from the Phoenix Project. The probability that a ΛCDM halo has three or fewer subhaloes with Vmax above some threshold value, Vth, is then straightforward to compute. It decreases steeply both with decreasing Vth and with increasing halo mass. For Vth = 30 km s−1, ∼40 per cent of Mhalo = 1012 M⊙ haloes pass the test; fewer than ∼5 per cent do so for Mhalo ≳ 2 × 1012 M⊙ and the probability effectively vanishes for Mhalo ≳ 3 × 1012 M⊙. Rather than a failure of ΛCDM, the absence of massive subhaloes might simply indicate that the MW is less massive than is commonly thought.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0b774e6a927bca368b80587acdcc7c077a20689b

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Citations in the corpus

A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter (2016, unknown): “1× 1012 M ), or if the MW was a statistical outlier [802, 803, 1052].”
Dark matter halo merger histories beyond cold dark matter – I. Methods and application to warm dark matter (2012, background): “…Newman et al. 2009, 2011; de Blok 2010; Kuzio de Naray & Kaufmann 2011; Kuzio de Naray & Spekkens 2011; Salucci et al. 2012; Wolf & Bullock 2012) and the apparent paucity of bright satellites around the Milky Way (Boylan-Kolchin, Bullock & Kaplinghat 2011, 2012; although see Wang et al. 2012).”
The milky way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2 (2019, background): “E-mail: cautun@strw.leidenuniv.nl host halo mass (e.g. Purcell & Zentner 2012; Wang et al. 2012; Cautun et al. 2014a; Hellwing et al. 2016) while the radial mass profile plays a key role in determining the orbits of satellite galaxies and tidal streams (e.g. Barber et al. 2014; Monachesi et al.…”
Is there a "too big to fail" problem in the field? (2014, background): “For example, Wang et al. (2012) & Vera-Ciro et al. (2013) have argued that if Article number, page 7 of 16 the mass of the MW halo isMvir < 1× 1012 M⊙ then the TBTF problem would likely not occur.”
Can feedback solve the too-big-to-fail problem? (2013, background): “Other authors have pointed out that a statistically rare or low-mass Milky Way (e.g. Purcell & Zentner 2012; Wang et al. 2012) can also explain the discrepancy; however, the former option is called into question by Strigari & Wechsler (2012) and the latter is in conflict with constraints derived by…”
The APOSTLE project: Local Group kinematic mass constraints and simulation candidate selection (2015, background): “…would likely lead to variations of the same magnitude in the predicted number of satellites of such systems (Boylan-Kolchin, Besla & Hernquist 2011; Wang et al. 2012; Cautun et al. 2014), limiting the insight that may be gained from direct quantitative comparison between simulations and…”
Gravitational probes of dark matter physics (2017, background): “Several have suggested that a Milky Way halo mass of ∼ 8× 10(11)M has no TBTF problem if CDM-only simulations are to be believed [329, 330, 331, 332].”
CONFIRMATION OF FAINT DWARF GALAXIES IN THE M81 GROUP (2013, background): “At slightly brighter magnitudes, it becomes harder to justify differences from theory (Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2012), although Wang et al. (2012) find some differences may be accounted for by assuming a slightly lower halo mass for the host galaxy.”
Core formation in dwarf haloes with self-interacting dark matter: no fine-tuning necessary (2014, background): “Similarly, while large TBTF subhalos become increasingly infrequent as the mass of the MW and M31 host halos decrease (Purcell & Zentner, 2012; Wang et al., 2012; Rodrı́guez-Puebla et al., 2013; Cautun et al., 2014), solutions of this kind appear less likely in the face of evidence that the TBTF…”
Using the Milky Way satellites to study interactions between cold dark matter and radiation (2014, background): “Alternatively, since the DM halo mass has a significant impact on the expected number of satellites, one may argue that the severity of the problem depends upon the choice of MW halo mass, which remains difficult to determine (Wang et al. 2012; Cautun et al. 2014).”
The properties of warm dark matter haloes (2013, methodology): “This discrepancy was called the ‘too big to fail problem’ by Boylan-Kolchin et al. Subsequently Wang et al. (2012) showed that the extent of the discrepancy depends strongly on the mass of the Galactic halo and all but disappears if the Milky Way’s halo has a mass of 1 × 1012M⊙,. Alternatively,…”
A BARYONIC SOLUTION TO THE MISSING SATELLITES PROBLEM (2012, methodology): “Using a larger statistical sample, both Wang et al. (2012) and Purcell & Zentner (2012) find a 10-20% probability of finding a subhalo population similar to the MW’s at a halo mass of 1012M⊙.”
TRIGONOMETRIC PARALLAXES OF HIGH MASS STAR FORMING REGIONS: THE STRUCTURE AND KINEMATICS OF THE MILKY WAY (2014, background): “This, in turn, affects the expected dark-matter annihilation signal (Finkbeiner et al. 2009), increases the “missing satellite” problem (Wang et al. 2012), and increases the likelihood that the Magellanic Clouds are bound to the Milky Way (Shattow & Loeb 2009).”
Too big to fail in the Local Group (2014, background): “Others have argued that TBTF is a result of the mass of the targeted haloes, pointing to simulations that indicate that smaller hosts, Mv ∼ 8 × 1011 M , do not typically contain these large, dense subhaloes (Di Cintio et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2012; Vera-Ciro et al. 2013).”
BARYONS MATTER: WHY LUMINOUS SATELLITE GALAXIES HAVE REDUCED CENTRAL MASSES (2012, background): “…excess of predicted massive subhalos around Milky Way-mass galaxies may disappear if satellites are modelled with Einasto (versus NFW) density profiles, or if the Milky Way’s true virial mass is ∼ 8 × 1011 M⊙, rather than ∼ 1012 M⊙ (Di Cintio et al. 2012; Vera-Ciro et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2012).”
Constraining self-interacting dark matter with the Milky Way’s dwarf spheroidals (2012, background): “…of the too big to fail problem in CDM depends on the mass of the MW halo, if it is in the low end of current estimates, .1012 M , the problem may be resolved (e.g. Wang et al. 2012), although a low halo mass may generate other difficulties such as explaining the presence of the Magellanic Clouds.”
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS: PROPERTIES OF THE STELLAR HALO AND THE MILKY WAY MASS DISTRIBUTION (2014, background): “Figure 5 in Wang et al. (2012) allows us to directly compare the host halo mass against the probability of containing three or less than three subhalos withvmax > 30 kms−1 (maximum value of the circular velocity).”
The formation of disc galaxies in high-resolution moving-mesh cosmological simulations (2013, background): “In order to alleviate tensions due to the “missing massive satellites problem” pointed out by Boylan-Kolchin et al. (2011, 2012), a recent analysis by Wang et al. (2012) favours masses at the lower end of this interval, at around 1012 M , which is also the centre of the narrow mass interval that we…”
ETHOS - an effective theory of structure formation: dark matter physics as a possible explanation of the small-scale CDM problems (2015, background): “8 × 1011M , the problem disappears (e.g. Wang et al. 2012).”