Inverse energy cascade in self-gravitating collisionless dark matter flow and effects of halo shape

Abstract

Halo-mediated mass and energy cascades are key to understand dark matter flow. Both cascades origin from the mass exchange between halo and out-of-halo sub-systems. Kinetic energy can be from the motion of halos and particle motion in halos. Similarly, potential energy can be due to the inter- and intra-halo interactions. Intra-halo virial equilibrium is established much faster than inter-halo. Change of energy of entire system comes from virilization in halos. At statistically steady state, continuous mass exchange is required to sustain growth of total halo mass $M_h\propto a^{1/2}$ and energy $E\propto a^{3/2}$, where $a$ is scale factor. Inverse cascade is identified for kinetic energy that is transferred from the smallest scale to large mass scales. This is sustained by the direct cascade of potential energy from large to small scale. Both energies have a scale- and time-independent flux in propagation range that is proportional to mass flux. Energy cascade is mostly facilitated by mass cascade, which can be quantitatively described by mass accretion of typical halos. Halo radial, angular momentum, and angular velocity are modelled and inverse cascade is identified for the coherent radial and rotational motion in halos. In turbulence, vortex stretching (shape changing) along its axis of spin enables energy cascade from large to small length scales. However, change in halo shape is not the dominant mechanism for energy cascade as the moment of inertial gained from shape changing is less than 2 times. Large halos exhibit preference for prolateness over oblateness and most halos have spin axis perpendicular to major axis. Since mass cascade is local in mass space, halo shape evolves continuously in mass space with halos formed by incrementally inheriting structure from progenitor halos. A unique evolution path of halos is found that gradually approaches sphere with increasing size.