The behaviour of dark matter associated with four bright cluster galaxies in the 10 kpc core of Abell 3827
By Richard J. Massey, L. Williams, R. Smit, M. Swinbank, Thomas D. Kitching, D. Harvey, M. Jauzac, H. Israel, D. Clowe, A. Edge and 13 more. 2015
168 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Galaxy cluster Abell 3827 hosts the stellar remnants of four almost equally bright elliptical galaxies within a core of radius 10 kpc. Such corrugation of the stellar distribution is very rare, and suggests recent formation by several simultaneous mergers. We map the distribution of associated dark matter, using new Hubble Space Telescope imaging and Very Large Telescope/Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer integral field spectroscopy of a gravitationally lensed system threaded through the cluster core. We find that each of the central galaxies retains a dark matter halo, but that (at least) one of these is spatially offset from its stars. The best-constrained offset is 1.62(-0.49)(+0.47) kpc, where the 68 per cent confidence limit includes both statistical error and systematic biases in mass modelling. Such offsets are not seen in field galaxies, but are predicted during the long infall to a cluster, if dark matter self-interactions generate an extra drag force. With such a small physical separation, it is difficult to definitively rule out astrophysical effects operating exclusively in dense cluster core environments - but if interpreted solely as evidence for self-interacting dark matter, this offset implies a cross-section sigma(DM)/(m) similar to (1.7 +/- 0.7) x 10(-4) cm(2) g(-1) x (t(infall)/10(9) yr)(-2), where t(infall) is the infall duration.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a4cbd3477358b1a23be1995fc25e79df28891586
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Citations in the corpus
- Gravitational probes of dark matter physics (2017, background): “Although this mechanism is largely inefficient for currently allowed cross sections [223, 224, 225], which are of order the scale of the strong nuclear force, the idea that mergers can probe interactions is alive on cluster scales (Mhalo ∼ 10(14)M − 10(15)M ) [226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232].”
- SIMP spectroscopy (2015, background): “[25] claimed the self-scattering cross section should be σscatter/m = (1.”
- ETHOS - an effective theory of structure formation: dark matter physics as a possible explanation of the small-scale CDM problems (2015, background): “On the observational side, Massey et al. (2015) recently found an offset between the inferred position of the DM halo and the stars of one of the 4 bright cluster galaxies in the 10 kpc core of Abell 3827.”
- What does the Bullet Cluster tell us about Self-Interacting Dark Matter? (2016, methodology): “Additional motivation for studying SIDM comes from the detection of separations between the distribution of stars and DM in galaxy clusters (Williams & Saha 2011; Mohammed et al. 2014; Massey et al. 2015).”
- The Frontier Fields lens modelling comparison project (2016, unknown): “…a number of clusters (Liesenborgs et al. 2008, 2009; Mohammed et al. 2014, 2015), quantify mass/light offsets in Abell 3827 (Mohammed et al. 2014; Massey et al. 2015), derive projected mass power spectra and compare to those of simulated clusters (Mohammed et al. 2016), and to study the relation…”
- Production regimes for Self-Interacting Dark Matter (2015, background): “If interpreted solely as an effect of DM self-interaction, it implies a non-vanishing σAA/mA of the order of 10 −4 cm(2)/g [23].”
- The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints (2017, background): “If interpreted solely as an effect of DM self-interaction, it was argued to imply a non-vanishing σ/m of the order of 10−4 cm2/g [197].”