Large-scale anisotropies on halo infall

Abstract

We perform a statistical analysis of the peculiar velocity field around dark matter haloes in numerical simulations. We examine different properties of the infall of material on to haloes and its relation to central halo shapes and the shape of the large-scale surrounding regions (LSSR). We find that the amplitude of the infall velocity field along the halo shape minor axis is larger than that along the major axis. This is consistent for general triaxial haloes, and for both prolate and oblate systems. We also report a strong anisotropy of the velocity field along the principal axes of the LSSR. The infall velocity field around dark matter haloes reaches a maximum value along the direction of the minor axis of the LSSR, whereas along the direction of its major axis, it exhibits the smallest velocities. We also analyse the dependence of the matter velocity field on the local environment. The amplitude of the infall velocity at high local density regions is larger than that at low local density regions. The velocity field tends to be more laminar along the direction towards the minor axis of the LSSR, where the mean ratio between flow velocity and velocity dispersion is of the order of unity and nearly constant up to scales of 15Mpch-1. We also detect anisotropies in the outflowing component of the velocity field, showing a maximum amplitude along the surrounding LSSR major axis. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.