Dark Matter in the Milky Way's Dwarf Spheroidal Satellites

The Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal satellites include the nearest, smallest and least luminous galaxies known. They also exhibit the largest discrepancies between dynamical and luminous masses. This article reviews the development of empirical constraints on the structure and kinematics of dSph stellar populations and discusses how this phenomenology translates into constraints on the amount and distribution of dark matter within dSphs. Some implications for cosmology and the particle nature of dark matter are discussed, and some topics/questions for future study are identified.Comment: A version with full-resolution figures is available at http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~mwalker/mwdsph_review.pdf; 70 pages, 22 figures; invited review article to be published in Vol. 5 of the book "Planets, Stars, and Stellar Systems", published by Springe

Inflation that runs naturally: Gravitational waves and suppression of power at large and small scales

We point out three correlated predictions of the axion monodromy inflation model: the large amplitude of gravitational waves, the suppression of power on horizon scales and on scales relevant for the formation of dwarf galaxies. While these predictions are likely generic to models with oscillations in the inflaton potential, the axion monodromy model naturally accommodates the required running spectral index through Planck-scale corrections to the inflaton potential. Applying this model to a combined data set of Planck, ACT, SPT, and WMAP low-ℓ polarization cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, we find a best-fit tensor-to-scalar ratio r0.05=0.07-0.04+0.05 due to gravitational waves, which may have been observed by the BICEP2 experiment. Despite the contribution of gravitational waves, the total power on large scales (CMB power spectrum at low multipoles) is lower than the standard ΛCDM cosmology with a power-law spectrum of initial perturbations and no gravitational waves, thus mitigating some of the tension on large scales. There is also a reduction in the matter power spectrum of 20-30% at scales corresponding to k=10Mpc-1, which are relevant for dwarf galaxy formation. This will alleviate some of the unsolved small-scale structure problems in the standard ΛCDM cosmology. The inferred matter power spectrum is also found to be consistent with recent Lyman-α forest data, which is in tension with the Planck-favored ΛCDM model with a power-law primordial power spectrum

A Robust Mass Estimator for Dark Matter Subhalo Perturbations in Strong Gravitational Lenses

A few dark matter substructures have recently been detected in strong gravitational lenses through their perturbations of highly magnified images. We derive a characteristic scale for lensing perturbations and show that they are significantly larger than the perturber's Einstein radius. We show that the perturber's projected mass enclosed within this radius, scaled by the log-slope of the host galaxy's density profile, can be robustly inferred even if the inferred density profile and tidal radius of the perturber are biased. We demonstrate the validity of our analytic derivation using several gravitational lens simulations where the tidal radii and the inner log-slopes of the density profile of the perturbing subhalo are allowed to vary. By modeling these simulated data, we find that our mass estimator, which we call the effective subhalo lensing mass, is accurate to within about 10% or smaller in each case, whereas the inferred total subhalo mass can potentially be biased by nearly an order of magnitude. We therefore recommend that the effective subhalo lensing mass be reported in future lensing reconstructions, as this will allow for a more accurate comparison with the results of dark matter simulations

A Robust Mass Estimator for Dark Matter Subhalo Perturbations in Strong Gravitational Lenses

A few dark matter substructures have recently been detected in strong gravitational lenses through their perturbations of highly magnified images. We derive a characteristic scale for lensing perturbations and show that they are significantly larger than the perturber's Einstein radius. We show that the perturber's projected mass enclosed within this radius, scaled by the log-slope of the host galaxy's density profile, can be robustly inferred even if the inferred density profile and tidal radius of the perturber are biased. We demonstrate the validity of our analytic derivation using several gravitational lens simulations where the tidal radii and the inner log-slopes of the density profile of the perturbing subhalo are allowed to vary. By modeling these simulated data, we find that our mass estimator, which we call the effective subhalo lensing mass, is accurate to within about 10% or smaller in each case, whereas the inferred total subhalo mass can potentially be biased by nearly an order of magnitude. We therefore recommend that the effective subhalo lensing mass be reported in future lensing reconstructions, as this will allow for a more accurate comparison with the results of dark matter simulations