Tilted Dark Halos Are Common and Long-lived, and Can Warp Galactic Disks

Abstract

In the Lambda cold dark matter paradigm, the dark halo governs the gravitational potential within which a galaxy can form and evolve. In this Letter we show that the present-day inner ( r 5 Gyr in isolated evolution, and (3) can generate warps in the outer disks that are stable over many Gyr. A tilted dark halo holds clues to important events in the formation history of a galaxy, and could help explain the abundance of warped disks in galaxy observations, including the Milky Way.

Keywords

• Galaxy dark matter halos