On the Mass Dependence of the Inner Slopes of Dark Matter Density Profiles

Abstract

We study through a semi-analytic model how the inner slopes of relaxed ΛCDM dark matter halos with and without baryons depend on the halo mass. We find that the inner logarithmic density slope, α ≡ d log ρ/d log r, of dark matter halos with baryons has a significant dependence on the halo mass with slopes ranging from α ≃ 0 for dwarf galaxies to ≃ 1 for clusters of galaxies. In the case of density profiles constituted just of dark matter, the mass dependence of slope is very slight. In the presence of baryons, the universality of the dark matter density profiles is no longer valid, in agreement with the results of several other authors, including the recent Di Cintio et al. (2014) simulations.

Keywords

• cosmology: theory
• large-scale structure of universe
• galaxies: formation