Can feedback solve the too-big-to-fail problem?

By S. Garrison-Kimmel, Miguel Rocha, M. Boylan-Kolchin, James S. Bullock, Jaspreet Lally. 2013

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The observed central densities of Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are significantly lower than the densities of the largest (Vmax about 35 km/s) subhalos found in dissipationless simulations of Galaxy-size dark matter hosts. One possible explanation is that gas removal from feedback can lower core densities enough to match observations. We model the dynamical effects of supernova feedback through the use of a time-varying central potential in high resolution, idealized numerical simulations and explore the resulting impact on the mass distributions of dwarf dark matter halos. We find that in order to match the observed central masses of M_star about 10^6 M_sun dSphs, the energy equivalent of more than 40,000 supernovae must be delivered with 100% efficiency directly to the dark matter. This energy requirement exceeds the number of supernovae that have ever exploded in most dSphs for typical initial mass functions. We also find that, per unit energy delivered and per cumulative mass removed from the galaxy, single blow-out events are more effective than repeated small bursts in reducing central dark matter densities. We conclude that it is unlikely that supernova feedback alone can solve the "Too Big to Fail" problem for Milky Way subhalos.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9592afe0c915ca126724eafd48274879423af1c

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Citations in the corpus

The stellar mass-halo mass relation of isolated field dwarfs : a critical test of ΛCDM at the edge of galaxy formation (2016, background): “However, several works in the literature have claimed that there is insufficient energy in such low stellar mass systems for cusp-core transformations to proceed (e.g. Peñarrubia et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013; Di Cintio et al. 2014; Tollet et al. 2015).”
The formation of disc galaxies in high-resolution moving-mesh cosmological simulations (2013, result): “However, the recent work by Garrison-Kimmel et al. (2013) questions these results.”
Dwarf galaxies in CDM and SIDM with baryons: observational probes of the nature of dark matter (2014, background): “…mechanism seemingly produces intermediate-mass galaxies (halo mass ∼5−10 × 1010 M ) with realistic cores and stellar-tohalo mass ratios (Governato et al. 2010, 2012), it is questionable if it is energetically viable for lower mass galaxies (Peñarrubia et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013).”
Dark matter cores all the way down (2015, background): “Several papers in the literature have argued that cusp-core transformations should become energetically unfavourable below some critical stellar or dark matter mass (e.g. Peñarrubia et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013, and see discussion in §1).”
The impact of baryonic physics on the structure of dark matter haloes: the view from the FIRE cosmological simulations (2015, methodology): “In particular, Garrison-Kimmel et al. (2013) tested if stellar feedback can lower central densities to a degree needed to explain the “Too Big To Fail” problem.”
BREATHING FIRE: HOW STELLAR FEEDBACK DRIVES RADIAL MIGRATION, RAPID SIZE FLUCTUATIONS, AND POPULATION GRADIENTS IN LOW-MASS GALAXIES (2015, background): “Baryon-driven potential fluctuations have been invoked as a possible solution to several of the discrepancies between the predictions of the ΛCDM framework and observation, including the “core-cusp” problem (for example, Navarro et al. 1996; Mashchenko et al. 2008; Pontzen & Governato 2012; Oñorbe ”
ELVIS: Exploring the Local Volume in Simulations (2013, background): “…model (Klypin et al. 1999; Moore et al. 1999; Strigari et al. 2008; Walker & Peñarrubia 2011; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2011; Zolotov et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013; Arraki et al. 2012) and as a potential hunting ground for the descendants of reionization and first light (Bullock et…”
Forged in FIRE: cusps, cores and baryons in low-mass dwarf galaxies (2015, background): “…does not form enough stars to modify its dark matter halo at all, providing further support to the idea that there is a critical mass below which core formation caused by stellar feedback is energetically impossible (see, e.g., Governato et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013; Madau et al. 2014).”
Too big to fail in the Local Group (2014, background): “Although energetic arguments indicate that the former is unlikely in most cases (Peñarrubia et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013), there is ample evidence that dwarfs are strongly affected by their environment – for example, there are only two galaxies within 300 kpc of the MW with detected…”
WHY BARYONS MATTER: THE KINEMATICS OF DWARF SPHEROIDAL SATELLITES (2012, background): “Although satellites in this luminosity range are unlikely to have had enough stellar feedback to produce large, kpc-sized cores (Peñarrubia et al. 2012; Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013), it is possible that lower energies may lower the density profiles at much smaller radii.”
A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter (2016, background): “Another source for the discrepancy could arise from astrophysical feedback effects [50, 51].”
Primordial black holes as generators of cosmic structures (2018, background): “Supernova feedback fails to eject enough baryons both for the present day Milky Way and for massive dwarfs, the latter being a manifestation of the “too big to fail” problem (Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013).”
Small scale problems of the $\Lambda$CDM model: a short review (2016, background): “the energetics of the core formation [301] (galaxies with M∗ < 107M have too few stars to generate the requested energy to flatten the cusp) and the required baryonic mass, marginally exceeding the baryon content of the dSphs [291].”
(Star)bursts of FIRE: observational signatures of bursty star formation in galaxies (2015, background): “…dark matter halos because SFR variability on timescales less than the local orbital period of dark matter particles can turn dark matter cusps into cores (Pontzen & Governato 2012, see also Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013; Di Cintio et al. 2014; Oñorbe et al. 2015; Chan et al. 2015; Read et al. 2016).”
`Skinny Milky Way please', says Sagittarius (2014, background): “Baryonic feedback does not appear to solve the problem entirely (Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013), so many researchers have interpreted this as evidence for changing the nature of the dark matter particle to warm (Lovell et al. 2012) or selfinteracting (Vogelsberger et al. 2012) or asymmetric (Zurek…”
A model for halo formation with axion mixed dark matter (2013, background): “…that the non-thermal solution both avoids this dilemma and also augurs well for a particle-orientated solution of MFP, a problem for which a feedback solution seems questionable (Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2013; Boylan-Kolchin, Bullock & Kaplinghat 2012), although not all agree (Brooks et al. 2013).”
Core formation in dwarf haloes with self-interacting dark matter: no fine-tuning necessary (2014, result): “In contrast, Peñarrubia et al. (2012) and Garrison-Kimmel et al. (2013) have argued that the M?”