A Universal Density Profile for Dark and Luminous Matter?

By D. Merritt, J. Navarro, A. Ludlow, Adrian Jenkins. 2005

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We explore similarities in the luminosity distribution of early-type galaxies and the mass profiles of ΛCDM halos. The spatial structure of these systems may be accurately described by a simple law in which the logarithmic slope of the density varies as a power of the radius: the Sérsic law. We show that this law provides a significantly better fit to a set of high-resolution ΛCDM halos than a three-parameter generalization of the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We discuss possible reasons why the same law should describe dark and luminous systems that span a range of over 7 decades in mass.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c8bdd8005b16c8db3def3dda59e7bf16919e9430

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Citations in the corpus

The mass profile and accretion history of cold dark matter haloes (2013, result): “This finding has now been verified by additional work (Merritt et al. 2005, 2006; Navarro et al. 2010; Gao et al. 2008; Hayashi & White 2008; Stadel et al. 2009; Ludlow et al. 2011) but there is no clear understanding of what breaks the similarity or what determines the value of α for a particular…”
Empirical Models for Dark Matter Halos. I. Nonparametric Construction of Density Profiles and Comparison with Parametric Models (2005, methodology): “…a function of two quantities: h0 and α. Figure 1 illustrates the dependence of ρ̂(r) on h0 when the kernel algorithm is applied to a random sample of 106 equal-mass particles generated from an Einasto density profile with n = 5, corresponding to typical values observed in Merritt et al. (2005).”
The Core-Cusp Problem (2009, background): “[27] and Graham et al.”
A primer on hierarchical galaxy formation: the semi-analytical approach (2006, background): “This work was extended to show that the density profile of dark matter haloes could be described by a simple, universal formula, with a inner scale or concentration parameter which depends upon halo mass (Navarro, Frenk & White 1997; see also Merritt et al. 2005a, 2005b).”
The mass–concentration–redshift relation of cold and warm dark matter haloes (2016, background): “Improved fits are obtained with profiles whose logarithmic slopes follow simple power laws with radius, d ln ρ/d ln r ∝ r−α (e.g. Merritt et al. 2005, 2006).”
Dynamical insight into dark matter haloes (2005, background): “…Kawai & Makino 2004; Hayashi et al. C© 2005 RAS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/363/4/1057/1043779 by guest on 29 July 2018 2004), and perhaps. even tend to a finite density at r = 0 with no cusp at all (Stoehr et al. 2002; Navarro et al. 2004; Merritt et al. 2005).”
Galaxy formation theory (2010, background): “…2004; Kravtsov et al. 2004; Reed et al. 2009), together with the density profiles (Navarro et al. 1997; Bullock et al. 2001b; Navarro et al. 2004; Merritt et al. 2005; Prada et al. 2006), angular momenta (Barnes and Efstathiou 1987; Efstathiou et al. 1988; Warren et al. 1992; Cole and Lacey…”
NIHAO – IV: core creation and destruction in dark matter density profiles across cosmic time (2015, background): “It is interesting to note that on the radial scales of this plot, the Einasto profile (which is known to provide a better fit to simulations, Merritt et al.2005, Navarro et al. 2010) predicts a steeper slope for DM haloes with respect to NFW.”
Cold dark matter haloes in the Planck era: evolution of structural parameters for Einasto and NFW profiles (2014, background): “A number of studies have shown that the Einasto profile provides, in general, a better description of CDM haloes than the NFW or gNFW profiles (e.g., Navarro et al. 2004, 2010; Merritt et al. 2005, 2006; Stadel et al. 2009; Reed et al. 2011).”
The Dwarf Galaxy DDO 47 as a Dark Matter Laboratory: Testing Cusps Hiding in Triaxial Halos (2005, background): “Merritt et al. (2005) showed that the Sérsic (1968) law fits high-resolution ΛCDM halos with a wide range of masses with a Sérsic index of n ≈ 2.4 − 3 which is usually used as a good fit of the surface brightness profiles of the centres of early-type galaxies.”
THE UNORTHODOX ORBITS OF SUBSTRUCTURE HALOS (2008, background): “As discussed by Navarro et al (2004), Merritt et al (2005, 2006), and more recently by Gao et al (2007), ΛCDM halo density profiles are well described by αDM in the range ∼ 0.15−0.3.”
The diversity and similarity of simulated cold dark matter haloes (2008, background): “Merritt et al. (2005, 2006) explored this further and argued that the third parameter is indeed needed to account faithfully for the curvature in the shape of the density profile.”
The redshift dependence of the structure of massive Λ cold dark matter haloes (2007, background): “This is especially important because of hints that such deviations depend systematically on halo mass (Navarro et al. 2004, Merritt et al. 2005).”
Globular Cluster System and Milky Way Properties Revisited (2005, background): “In addition, the density profile of the outer stellar halo is more centrally concentrated with a steeper slope than the dark matter halo, whose density profile is characterised by slopes n = 1−3 (Merritt et al. 2005).”
Empirical Models for Dark Matter Halos. II. Inner Profile Slopes, Dynamical Profiles, and ρ/σ3 (2006, methodology): “Intriguingly, this function was shown to provide a better fit than the 3-parameter NFW-like model with arbitrary inner power-law slope (Diemand, Moore, & Stadel 2004; Merritt et al. 2005, 2006).”
A Nearby Repeating Fast Radio Burst in the Direction of M81 (2021, methodology): “We first consider two halo gas profiles proposed by Maller & Bullock (2004, hereafter MB04) and Mathews & Prochaska (2017, hereafter MP17).22 Both profiles are modified versions of the Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) density profile (Merritt et al. 2005).”
A Bayesian approach to strong lensing modelling of galaxy clusters (2007, background): “In addition, Merritt et al. (2005, 2006), find that a deprojected Sérsic profile gives a better fit than an NFW profile to the 3D density profile of DM halos from simulations.”