arXiv subjects

Tzihong Chiueh

Publications and source records attributed to Tzihong Chiueh.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Soliton Random Walk and the Cluster-Stripping Problem in Ultralight Dark Matter

Simulations of ultralight, $\sim 10^{-22}\,\rm eV$, bosonic dark matter exhibit rich wave-like structure, including a soliton core within a surrounding halo that continuously self-interferes on the de Broglie scale. We show here that as an inherent consequence, the soliton undergoes a confined random walk at the base of the halo potential. This is significant for the fate of the ancient central star cluster in Eridanus II, as the agitated soliton gravitationally shakes the star cluster in and out of the soliton on a time scale of $\sim 100\,\rm Myr$, so complete tidal disruption of the star cluster can occur within $\sim 1\,\rm Gyr$. This destructive effect can be mitigated by tidal stripping of the halo of Eridanus II, thereby reducing the agitation, depending on its orbit around the Milky Way. Our simulations show the Milky Way tide affects the halo much more than the soliton, so the star cluster in Eridanus II can survive for over $5\,\rm Gyr$ within the soliton if it formed after significant halo stripping.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

A Soliton Solution for the Central Dark Masses in 47- Tuc Globular Cluster and Implications for the Axiverse

We offer a standing wave explanation for the rising proper motions of stars at the center of the globular cluster 47-Tucanae, amounting to $\simeq 0.44\%$ of the total mass. We show this can be explained as a solitonic core of dark matter composed of light bosons, $ m \geq 10^{-18} eV $, corresponding to $ \leq 0.27 pc$, as an alternative to a single black hole (BH) or a concentration of stellar BH remnants proposed recently. This is particularly important as having a concentrated stellar BH remnant with the above radii is very challenging without the heavy core since the three body encounters would prevent the BHs to be that concentrated. We propose this core develops from dark matter captured in the deep gravitational potential of this globular cluster as it orbits the dark halo of our galaxy. This boson may be evidence for a second light axion, additional to a lighter boson of $10^{-22} eV$, favored for the dominant dark matter implied by the large dark cores of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The identification of two such light bosonic mass scales favors the generic string theory prediction of a wide, discrete mass spectrum of axionic scalar fields.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Dynamical Evidence of a Solitonic Core of $10^{9}M_\odot$ in the Milky Way

A wavelike solution for the non-relativistic universal dark matter (wave-DM) is rapidly gaining interest, following distinctive predictions of pioneering simulations of cosmic structure as an interference pattern of coherently oscillating bosons. A prominent solitonic standing wave is predicted at the center of every galaxy, representing the ground state, that has been identified with the wide, kpc scale dark cores of common dwarf-spheroidal galaxies, providing a boson mass of, $\simeq 10^{-22}$ eV. A denser soliton is predicted for Milky Way sized galaxies where momentum is higher, so the de Broglie scale of the soliton is smaller, $\simeq 100$ pc, of mass $\simeq 10^9 M_\odot$. Here we show the central motion of bulge stars in the Milky Way implies the presence of such a dark core, where the velocity dispersion rises inversely with radius to a maximum of $\simeq 130$ km/s, corresponding to an excess central mass of $\simeq 1.5\times 10^9 M_\odot$ within $\simeq 100$ pc, favouring a boson mass of $\simeq 10^{-22}$ eV. This quantitative agreement with such a unique and distinctive prediction is therefore strong evidence for a light bosonic solution to the long standing Dark Matter puzzle, such as the axions generic in String Theory.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Testing extreme-axion wave dark matter using the BOSS Lyman-Alpha forest data

Using cosmological particle hydrodynamical simulations and uniform ultraviolet backgrounds, we compare Lyman-$α$ forest flux spectra predicted by the conventional cold dark matter (CDM) model, the free-particle wave dark matter (FP$ψ$DM) model and extreme-axion wave dark matter (EA$ψ$DM) models of different initial axion field angles against the BOSS Lyman-$α$ forest absorption spectra with a fixed boson mass $m_b\sim 10^{-22}$eV. We recover results reported previously (Iršič et al. 2017b; Armengaud et al. 2017) that the CDM model agrees better with the BOSS data than the FP$ψ$DM model by a large margin, and we find the difference of total $χ^2$'s is $120$ for $420$ data bins. These previous results demand a larger boson mass by a factor $>10$ to be consistent with the date and are in tension with the favoured value determined from local satellite galaxies. We however find that such tension is removed as some EA$ψ$DM models predict Lyman-$α$ flux spectra agreeing better with the BOSS data than the CDM model, and the difference of total $χ^2$'s can be as large as $24$ for the same bin number. This finding arises with no surprise since EA$ψ$DM models have unique spectral shapes with spectral bumps in excess of the CDM power near the small-scale cutoff typical of $ψ$DM linear matter power spectra as well as more extended cutoffs than FP$ψ$DM (Zhang & Chiueh 2017a,b).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Magnification Bias of Distant Galaxies in the Hubble Frontier Fields: Testing Wave vs. Particle Dark Matter Predictions

Acting as powerful gravitational lenses, the strong lensing galaxy clusters of the deep Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) program permit access to lower-luminosity galaxies lying at higher redshifts than hitherto possible. We analyzed the HFF to measure the volume density of Lyman-break galaxies at $z > 4.75$ by identifying a complete and reliable sample up to $z \simeq 10$. A marked deficit of such galaxies was uncovered in the highly magnified regions of the clusters relative to their outskirts, implying that the magnification of the sky area dominates over additional faint galaxies magnified above the flux limit. This negative magnification bias is consistent with a slow rollover at the faint end of the UV luminosity function, and indicates a preference for Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter with a light boson mass of $m_\mathrm{B} \simeq 10^{-22} \, \mathrm{eV}$ over standard cold dark matter. We emphasize that measuring the magnification bias requires no correction for multiply lensed images (with typically three or more images per source), whereas directly reconstructing the luminosity function will lead to an overestimate unless such images can be exhaustively matched up, especially at the faint end that is accessible only in the strongly lensed regions. In addition, we detected a distinctive downward transition in galaxy number density at $z \gtrsim 8$, which may be linked to the relatively late reionization reported by Planck. Our results suggests that JWST will likely peer into an "abyss" with essentially no galaxies detected in deep NIR imaging at $z > 10$.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Magnetohydrodynamics with GAMER

GAMER, a parallel Graphic-processing-unit-accelerated Adaptive-MEsh-Refinement hydrodynamic code, has been extended to support magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) with both the corner-transport-upwind (CTU) and MUSCL-Hancock schemes and the constraint transport (CT) technique. The divergent preserving operator for adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) has been applied to reinforce the divergence-free constraint on the magnetic field. GAMER-MHD has fully exploited the concurrent executions between the GPU MHD solver and other CPU computation pertinent to AMR. We perform various standard tests to demonstrate that GAMER-MHD is both second-order accurate and robust, producing results as accurate as those given by high-resolution uniform-grid runs. We also explore a new 3D MHD test, where the magnetic field assumes the Arnold-Beltrami-Childress (ABC) configuration, temporarily becomes turbulent with current sheets and finally settles to a lowest-energy equilibrium state. This 3D problem is adopted for the performance test of GAMER-MHD. The single-GPU performance reaches $1.2\times 10^8$ and $5.5\times 10^7$ cell-updates/sec for the single- and double-precision calculations, respectively, on Tesla P100. We also demonstrate a parallel efficiency of $\sim 70\%$ for both weak and strong scaling using $1,024$ XK nodes on the Blue Waters supercomputers.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2018

Self-consistent construction of virialized wave dark matter halos

Wave dark matter ($ψ$DM), which satisfies the Schrödinger-Poisson equation, has recently attracted substantial attention as a possible dark matter candidate. Numerical simulations have in the past provided a powerful tool to explore this new territory of possibility. Despite their successes to reveal several key features of $ψ$DM, further progress in simulations is limited, in that cosmological simulations so far can only address formation of halos below $\sim 2\times 10^{11} M_\odot$ and substantially more massive halos have become computationally very challenging to obtain. For this reason, the present work adopts a different approach in assessing massive halos by constructing wave-halo solutions directly from the wave distribution function. This approach bears certain similarity with the analytical construction of particle-halo (cold dark matter model). Instead of many collisionless particles, one deals with one single wave that has many non-interacting eigenstates. The key ingredient in the wave-halo construction is the distribution function of the wave power, and we use several halos produced by structure formation simulations as templates to determine the wave distribution function. Among different models, we find the fermionic King model presents the best fits and we use it for our wave-halo construction. We have devised an iteration method for constructing the nonlinear halo, and demonstrate its stability by three-dimensional simulations. A Milky-Way-sized halo has also been constructed, and the inner halo is found flatter than the NFW profile. These wave-halos have small-scale interferences both in space and time producing time-dependent granules. While the spatial scale of granules varies little, the correlation time is found to increase with radius by one order of magnitude across the halo.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

How do stars affect $ψ$DM halos?

Wave dark matter ($ψ$DM) predicts a compact soliton core and a granular halo in every galaxy. This work presents the first simulation study of an elliptical galaxy by including both stars and $ψ$DM, focusing on the systematic changes of the central soliton and halo granules. With the addition of stars in the inner halo, we find the soliton core consistently becomes more prominent by absorbing mass from the host halo than that without stars, and the halo granules become "non-isothermal", "hotter" in the inner halo and "cooler" in the outer halo, as opposed to the isothermal halo in pure $ψ$DM cosmological simulations. Moreover, the composite (star+$ψ$DM) mass density is found to follow a $r^{-2}$ isothermal profile near the half-light radius in most cases. Most striking is the velocity dispersion of halo stars that increases rapidly toward the galactic center by a factor of at least 2 inside the half-light radius caused by the deepened soliton gravitational potential, a result that compares favorably with observations of elliptical galaxies and bulges in spiral galaxies. However in some rare situations we find a phase segregation turning a compact distribution of stars into two distinct populations with high and very low velocity dispersions; while the high-velocity component mostly resides in the halo, the very low-velocity component is bound to the interior of the soliton core, resembling stars in faint dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Recognising Axionic Dark Matter by Compton and de-Broglie Scale Modulation of Pulsar Timing

Light Axionic Dark Matter, motivated by string theory, is increasingly favored for the "no-WIMP era". Galaxy formation is suppressed below a Jeans scale, of $\simeq 10^8 M_\odot$ by setting the axion mass to, $m_B \sim 10^{-22}$eV, and the large dark cores of dwarf galaxies are explained as solitons on the de-Broglie scale. This is persuasive, but detection of the inherent scalar field oscillation at the Compton frequency, $ω_B= (2.5{\rm \, months})^{-1}(m_B/10^{-22}eV)$, would be definitive. By evolving the coupled Schrödinger-Poisson equation for a Bose-Einstein condensate, we predict the dark matter is fully modulated by de-Broglie interference, with a dense soliton core of size $\simeq 150pc$, at the Galactic center. The oscillating field pressure induces General Relativistic time dilation in proportion to the local dark matter density and pulsars within this dense core have detectably large timing residuals, of $\simeq 400nsec/(m_B/10^{-22}eV)$. This is encouraging as many new pulsars should be discovered near the Galactic center with planned radio surveys. More generally, over the whole Galaxy, differences in dark matter density between pairs of pulsars imprints a pairwise Galactocentric signature that can be distinguished from an isotropic gravitational wave background.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Halo Abundance and Assembly History with Extreme-Axion Wave Dark Matter at $z\ge 4$

Wave dark matter ($ψ\rm{DM}$) composed of extremely light bosons ($m_ψ \sim 10^{-22}\,\rm eV$), with quantum pressure suppressing structures below a kpc-scale de Broglie wavelength, has become a viable dark matter candidate. Compared to the conventional free-particle $ψ{\rm DM}$ (${\rm FP} ψ{\rm DM}$), the extreme-axion $ψ\rm{DM}$ model (${\rm EA} ψ{\rm DM}$) proposed by Zhang & Chiueh (2017) features a larger cut-off wavenumber and a broad spectral bump in the matter transfer function. Here we conduct cosmological simulations to compare the halo abundances and assembly histories at $z=4-11$ between three different scenarios: ${\rm FP} ψ{\rm DM}$, ${\rm EA} ψ{\rm DM}$, and cold dark matter (CDM). We show that ${\rm EA} ψ{\rm DM}$ produces significantly more abundant low-mass haloes than ${\rm FP} ψ{\rm DM}$ with the same $m_ψ$, and therefore could alleviate the tension in $m_ψ$ required by the Ly$α$ forest data and by the kpc-scale dwarf galaxy cores. We also find that, compared to the CDM counterparts, massive ${\rm EA} ψ{\rm DM}$ haloes are on average $3-4$ times more massive at $z=10-11$ due to their earlier formation, undergo a slower mass accretion at $7 \lesssim z \lesssim 11$, and then show a rapidly rising major merger rate exceeding CDM by $\sim 50\%$ at $4 \lesssim z \lesssim 7$. This fact suggests that ${\rm EA} ψ{\rm DM}$ haloes may exhibit more prominent starbursts at $z \lesssim 7$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

The Pan-STARRS1 Medium-deep Survey: Star Formation Quenching in Group and Cluster Environments

We make use of a catalog of 1600 Pan-STARRS1 groups produced by the probability friends-of-friends algorithm to explore how the galaxy properties, i.e. the specific star formation rate (SSFR) and quiescent fraction, depend on stellar mass and group-centric radius. The work is the extension of Lin et al. (2014). In this work, powered by a stacking technique plus a background subtraction for contamination removal, a finer correction and more precise results are obtained than in our previous work. We find that while the quiescent fraction increases with decreasing group-centric radius the median SSFRs of star-forming galaxies in groups at fixed stellar mass drop slightly from the field toward the group center. This suggests that the major quenching process in groups is likely a fast mechanism. On the other hand, a reduction in SSFRs by ~0.2 dex is seen inside clusters as opposed to the field galaxies. If the reduction is attributed to the slow quenching effect, the slow quenching process acts dominantly in clusters. In addition, we also examine the density-color relation, where the density is defined by using a sixth-nearest neighbor approach. Comparing the quiescent fractions contributed from the density and radial effect, we find that the density effect dominates over the massive group or cluster galaxies, and the radial effect becomes more effective in less massive galaxies. The results support mergers and/or starvation as the main quenching mechanisms in the group environment, while harassment and/or starvation dominate in clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Evolution of linear wave dark matter perturbations in the radiation-dominant era

Linear perturbations of the wave dark matter, or $ψ$ dark matter ($ψ$DM), of particle mass $\sim 10^{-22}$eV in the radiation-dominant era are analyzed, and the matter power spectrum at the photon-matter equality is obtained. We identify four phases of evolution for $ψ$DM perturbations, where the dynamics can be vastly different from the counterparts of cold dark matter (CDM). While in late stages after mass oscillation long-wave $ψ$DM perturbations are almost identical to CDM perturbations, some subtle differences remain, let alone intermediate-to-short waves that bear no resemblance with those of CDM throughout the whole evolutionary history. The dissimilarity is due to quantum mechanical effects which lead to severe mode suppression. We also discuss the axion model with a cosine field potential. The power spectrum of axion models are generally almost identical to those of $ψ$DM, but in the extreme case when the initial axion angle is near the field potential top, this axion model predict a power excess over a range of wave number and a higher spectral cutoff than $ψ$DM as if $ψ$DM had a higher particle mass.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Cosmological Perturbations of Extreme Axion in the Radiation Era

Sub-horizon perturbations under the extreme initial condition of the axion model are investigated, where initial axion angles start near the potential maximum. This work focuses on a few new features found in the extreme axion model but absent in the free-particle model. A particularly novel new feature is the spectral excess relative to the CDM model in some wave number range, where the excess may be so large that landscapes of high-redshift universe beyond $z=10$ can be significantly altered. For axions of particle mass $10^{-22}$ eV, this range of wave number corresponds to first galaxies of few times $10^9-10^{10} M_\odot$. We demonstrate that sub-horizon perturbations are accurately described by Mathieu's equation and subject to parametric instability, which explains this novel feature. Actually the axion model is not a special one; perturbations in a wide range of scalar field models can share the similar characteristic.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Galaxy-scale gravitational lens candidates from the Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging survey and the Galaxy And Mass Assembly spectroscopic survey

We present a list of galaxy-scale lens candidates including a highly probable interacting galaxy-scale lens in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) imaging survey. We combine HSC imaging with the blended-spectra catalog from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey to identify lens candidates, and use lens mass modeling to confirm the candidates. We find 46 matches between the HSC S14A_0b imaging data release and the GAMA catalog. Ten of them are probable lens systems according to their morphology and redshifts. There is one system with an interacting galaxy pair, HSC J084928+000949, that has a valid mass model. We predict the total mass enclosed by the Einstein radius of $\sim0.72$" ($\sim1.65$kpc) for this new expected lens system to be $\sim10^{10.59}M_{\odot}$. Using the photometry in the {\it grizy} bands of the HSC survey and stellar population synthesis modeling with a Salpeter stellar initial mass function, we estimate the stellar mass within the Einstein radius to be $\sim10^{10.46}\,M_{\odot}$. We thus find a dark matter mass fraction within the Einstein radius of $\sim25\%$. Further spectroscopy or high-resolution imaging would allow confirmation of the nature of these lens candidates. The particular system with the interacting galaxy pair, if confirmed, would provide an opportunity to study the interplay between dark matter and stars as galaxies build up through hierarchical mergers.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Jeans Analysis for Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies in Wave Dark Matter

Although still under debate, observations generally suggest that dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies exhibit large constant-density cores in the centers, which can hardly be explained by dissipationless cold dark matter simulations without baryonic feedback. Wave dark matter (${ψ{\rm DM}}$), characterized by a single parameter, the dark matter particle mass $m_ψ$, predicts a central soliton core in every galaxy arising from quantum pressure against gravity. Here we apply Jeans analysis assuming a soliton core profile to the kinematic data of eight classical dSphs so as to constrain $m_ψ$, and obtain $m_ψ=1.18_{-0.24}^{+0.28}\times10^{-22}{\,\rm eV}$ and $m_ψ=1.79_{-0.33}^{+0.35}\times10^{-22}{\,\rm eV}~(2σ)$ using the observational data sets of Walker et al. (2007) and Walker et al. (2009b), respectively. We show that the estimate of $m_ψ$ is sensitive to the dSphs kinematic data sets and is robust to various models of stellar density profile. We also consider multiple stellar subpopulations in dSphs and find consistent results. This mass range of $m_ψ$ is in good agreement with other independent estimates, such as the high-redshift luminosity functions, the reionization history, and the Thomson optical depth to the cosmic microwave background.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Hydrodynamical Simulations of Colliding Jets

Radio observations suggest that 3C 75, located in the dumbbell shaped galaxy NGC 1128 at the center of Abell 400, hosts two colliding jets. Motivated by this source, we perform three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations using a modified version of the GPU-accelerated Adaptive-MEsh-Refinement hydrodynamical parallel code ($\mathit{GAMER}$) to study colliding extragalactic jets. We find that colliding jets can be cast into two categories: 1) bouncing jets, in which case the jets bounce off each other keeping their identities, and 2) merging jets, when only one jet emerges from the collision. Under some conditions the interaction causes the jets to break up into oscillating filaments of opposite helicity, with consequences for their downstream stability. When one jet is significantly faster than the other and the impact parameter is small, the jets merge; the faster jet takes over the slower one. In the case of merging jets, the oscillations of the filaments, in projection, may show a feature which resembles a double helix, similar to the radio image of 3C 75. Thus we interpret the morphology of 3C 75 as a consequence of the collision of two jets with distinctly different speeds at a small impact parameter, with the faster jet breaking up into two oscillating filaments.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

SHARP - III: First Use Of Adaptive Optics Imaging To Constrain Cosmology With Gravitational Lens Time Delays

Accurate and precise measurements of the Hubble constant are critical for testing our current standard cosmological model and revealing possibly new physics. With Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, each strong gravitational lens system with measured time delays can allow one to determine the Hubble constant with an uncertainty of $\sim 7\%$. Since HST will not last forever, we explore adaptive-optics (AO) imaging as an alternative that can provide higher angular resolution than HST imaging but has a less stable point spread function (PSF) due to atmospheric distortion. To make AO imaging useful for time-delay-lens cosmography, we develop a method to extract the unknown PSF directly from the imaging of strongly lensed quasars. In a blind test with two mock data sets created with different PSFs, we are able to recover the important cosmological parameters (time-delay distance, external shear, lens mass profile slope, and total Einstein radius). Our analysis of the Keck AO image of the strong lens system RXJ1131-1231 shows that the important parameters for cosmography agree with those based on HST imaging and modeling within 1-$σ$ uncertainties. Most importantly, the constraint on the model time-delay distance by using AO imaging with $0.045"$resolution is tighter by $\sim 50\%$ than the constraint of time-delay distance by using HST imaging with $0.09"$when a power-law mass distribution for the lens system is adopted. Our PSF reconstruction technique is generic and applicable to data sets that have multiple nearby point sources, enabling scientific studies that require high-precision models of the PSF.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Contrasting Galaxy Formation from Quantum Wave Dark Matter, $ψ$DM, with $Λ$CDM, using Planck and Hubble Data

The newly established luminosity functions of high-z galaxies at $4 \lesssim z \lesssim 10$ can provide a stringent check on dark matter models that aim to explain the core properties of dwarf galaxies. The cores of dwarf spheroidal galaxies are understood to be too large to be accounted for by free streaming of warm dark matter without overly suppressing the formation of such galaxies. Here we demonstrate with cosmological simulations that wave dark matter, $ψ$DM, appropriate for light bosons such as axions, does not suffer this problem, given a boson mass of $m_ψ \ge 1.2 \times 10^{-22}{\,\rm eV}$ ($2σ$). In this case, the halo mass function is suppressed below $\sim 10^{10}{\,M_\odot}$ at a level that is consistent with the high-z luminosity functions, while simultaneously generating the kpc-scale cores in dwarf galaxies arising from the solitonic ground state in $ψ$DM. We demonstrate that the reionization history in this scenario is consistent with the Thomson optical depth recently reported by Planck, assuming a reasonable ionizing photon production rate. We predict that the luminosity function should turn over slowly around an intrinsic UV luminosity of $M_{\rm UV} \gtrsim -16$ at $z \gtrsim 4$. We also show that for galaxies magnified $\mathord{>}10\times$ in the Hubble Frontier Fields, $ψ$DM predicts an order of magnitude fewer detections than cold dark matter at $z \gtrsim 10$ down to $M_{\rm UV} \sim -15$, allowing us to distinguish between these very different interpretations for the observed coldness of dark matter.

astro-ph.GA↗