Typical density profile for warm dark matter haloes

Abstract

Using the model for (bottom-up) hierarchical halo growth recently developed by Salvador-Solé et al., we derive the typical spherically averaged density profile for haloes with several relevant masses in the concordant warm dark matter (ΛWDM) cosmology with non-thermal sterile neutrinos of two different masses. The predicted density profiles become flat at small radii, as expected from the effects of the spectrum cut-off. The core cannot be resolved, however, because the non-null particle velocity yields the fragmentation of minimum mass protohaloes in small nodes, which invalidates the model at the corresponding radii. © 2012 The Authors, MNRAS 424, L6-L10 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS.