Narrow Results

We derive the cosmic energy equation for extended mass structures (i.e., galaxies with halos) which cluster gravitationally in the expanding universe. From this cosmic energy equation, we study the quasi-static evolution for nonpoint mass system of galaxies. Using this cosmic energy equation, we examine the growth of correlation potential energy for the extended masses. We also derive the expression for virial mass and try to account for the dark matter present in the halos of the galaxies.

We develop a more general theory of the two-component system of galaxies by treating the galaxies as extended structures. We make use of the softened potential (r² + ∊²)^-1/2, with ∊ as a measure of the finite size of the galaxies, to evaluate the partition function, various thermodynamic properties of the system and the distribution function. Our analysis shows that the distribution function is not too greatly altered by the softening, thus vindicating our earlier claim¹ besides making the theory more elaborate as all the earlier results^1,2 are retrieved exactly from the new distribution function. Also, an attempt is made to account for the dark matter in the universe.

Assuming the standard cosmological model to be correct, the average linear size of the galaxies with the same luminosity is six times smaller at z = 3.2 than at z = 0; and their average angular size for a given luminosity is approximately proportional to z^-1. Neither the hypothesis that galaxies which formed earlier have much higher densities nor their luminosity evolution, merger ratio, and massive outflows due to a quasar feedback mechanism are enough to justify such a strong size evolution. Also, at high redshift, the intrinsic ultraviolet surface brightness would be prohibitively high with this evolution, and the velocity dispersion much higher than observed. We explore here another possibility of overcoming this problem: considering different cosmological scenarios, which might make the observed angular sizes compatible with a weaker evolution.

One of the explored models, a very simple phenomenological extrapolation of the linear Hubble law in a Euclidean static universe, fits quite well the angular size versus redshift dependence, also approximately proportional to z^-1 with this cosmological model. There are no free parameters derived ad hoc, although the error bars allow a slight size/luminosity evolution. The supernova Ia Hubble diagram can also be explained in terms of this model without any ad-hoc-fitted parameter.

NB: I do not argue here that the true universe is static. My intention is just to discuss which intellectual theoretical models fit better some data of the observational cosmology.

We study the redshift and mass dependence of the inner slopes of relaxed ΛCDM dark matter haloes with and without baryons. We find that in the density profiles composed just of dark matter, the mass and redshift dependence of the slope is very slight, while the inner logarithmic density slope of dark matter haloes with baryons has a significant dependence on the halo mass and redshift. Slopes of structures increase with increasing mass and redshift, and this trend reduces from galaxies to clusters. The results of the present paper argue against universality of density profiles composed of dark matter and baryons, and confirm claims of a systematic variation in profile shape with halo mass, for dark matter haloes.

The hierarchical scenario of structure formation describes how objects like galaxies and galaxy clusters are formed by mergers of small objects. In this scenario, mergers of galaxies can lead to the formation of massive black hole (MBH) binary systems. On the other hand, the merger of two MBH could produce a gravitational wave signal detectable, in principle, by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). In the present work, we use the Press–Schechter formalism, and its extension, to describe the merger rate of haloes which contain massive black holes. Here, we do not study the gravitational wave emission of these systems. However, we present an initial study to determine the number of systems formed via mergers that could permit, in a future extension of this work, the calculation of the signature in gravitational waves of these systems.

Given that dark matter is gravitationally dominant in the universe, and that galaxy formation is closely related to dark matter halos, a key first step in understanding galaxy formation and evolution in the CDM paradigm is to quantify the galaxy-halo connection for galaxies of different properties. Here I will present results about the halo/galaxy connection obtained from two different methods. One is based on the conditional luminosity function, which describes the occupation of galaxies in halos of different masses, and the other is based on galaxy systems properly selected to represent dark halos.

We investigate the structure of halos in the sDGP (self-accelerating branch of the Dvali–Gavadadze–Porrati braneworld gravity) model and the Galileon modified gravity model on the basis of the static and spherically symmetric solutions of the collisionless Boltzmann equation, which reduce to the singular isothermal sphere model and the King model in the limit of Newtonian gravity. The common feature of these halos is that the density of a halo in the outer region is larger (smaller) in the sDGP (Galileon) model, respectively, in comparison with Newtonian gravity. This comes from the suppression (enhancement) of the effective gravity at large distance in the sDGP (Galileon) model, respectively. However, the difference between these modified gravity models and Newtonian gravity only appears outside the halo due to the Vainshtein mechanism, which makes it difficult to distinguish between them. We also discuss the case in which the halo density profile is fixed independently of the gravity model for comparison between our results and previous work.

Recent observations of blazars at high energy (0.1–100 GeV) and very high energy (> 0.1 TeV) have provided important constraints on the intensity and spectrum of the diffuse extragalactic background light (EBL), shedding light on its main origin. Several issues remain open, however, in particular in the mid- and far-infrared bands and in the blazar emission at multi-TeV energies. This review summarizes the observational and theoretical progress in the study of the EBL with gamma-rays and the most promising future improvements, which are mainly expected from spectra in the multi-TeV range.

This paper is a broadband review of the current status of nonbaryonic dark matter (DM) research, starting from a historical overview of the evidences of existence of DM, then discussing how DM is distributed from small scale to large scale, continuing with a discussion on DM nature, DM candidates and their detection. I finally discuss some of the limits of the ΛCDM model, with particular emphasis on the small scale problems of the paradigm.

We study an isothermal system of semi-degenerate self-gravitating fermions in general relativity (GR). The most general solutions present is mass density profiles with a central degenerate compact core governed by quantum statistics followed by an extended plateau, and ending in a power law behavior r^-2. By fixing the fermion mass m in the keV regime, the different solutions depending on the free parameters of the model: the degeneracy and temperature parameters at the center, are systematically constructed along the one-parameter sequences of equilibrium configurations up to the critical point, which is represented by the maximum in a central density (ρ₀) versus core mass (M_c) diagram. We show that for fully degenerate cores, the Oppenheimer–Volkoff (OV) mass limit is obtained, while instead for low degenerate cores, the critical core mass increases showing the temperature effects in a nonlinear way. The main result of this work is that when applying this theory to model the distribution of dark matter (DM) in big elliptical galaxies from miliparsec distance-scales up to 10² Kpc, we do not find any critical core-halo configuration of self-gravitating fermions, able to explain both the most super-massive dark object at their center together with the DM halo simultaneously.

We re-examine the question of condensed neutrino objects (degenerate neutrino matter) based on new calculations. The potential show-stopper issue of free-streaming light neutrinos inhibiting galaxy formation is addressed. We compute the period associated with simple harmonic motion (SHM) of galaxies embedded within condensed neutrino objects. For observational consequences, we examine the rotational velocities of embedded galaxies using Hickson 88A (N6978) as the prototype. Finally, we point out that degenerate neutrino objects repel each other in overlap and we compute directly the repulsive force between two interesting and relevant configurations. An outstanding issue is whether the accompanying tidal forces generated by condensed neutrino matter on embedded galaxies give rise to galactic bulges and halos.

The purpose of this work is to investigate an alternative to modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), in order to explain the rotation curve of galaxies without dark matter hypothesis, and with respect for classical physics. Our hypothesis is that the force of gravitation, in the case of large distances and under certain conditions, possesses a tangential component. We show that the force of gravitation we obtain is compatible with observational data, such as "flat" curve of rotation and the conic trajectories of the stars.

The purpose of this work is to clarify the mathematical form of an alternative classical force of gravitation, which has been described in a previous paper. The purpose of this investigation is to find a solution to the problem of the velocity curve of spiral galaxies, without dark matter hypothesis. In the first part, we study the free fall motion, in the case of our force, and we determine a possible mathematical expression for it. In the second part, we discuss the validity of our assumptions.

While general relativity (GR) is our premier theory of gravity, galactic dynamics from the outset has been studied with Newtonian gravity (NG), guided by the long-held belief in the idea of the “Newtonian-limit” of GR. This maintains that when the gravitational field is weak and the velocities are nonrelativistic, NG is the appropriate theory, apart from small corrections at best (such as in GPS tracking). However, there are simple examples of phenomena where there is no NG counterpart. We present a particularly simple new example of the stark difference that NG and weak-field GR exhibit for a modified van Stockum source, which speaks to the flat galactic rotation curve problem. We note that the linear GR compatibility equation in the literature is incomplete. Its completion is vital for our case, leading to a stark contrast between GR and NG for totally flat van Stockum rotation curves.

We study how galaxy morphology changes the relation among the inner slope $\alpha$ of galactic density profiles and the stellar mass, and rotation velocity.

We find that the slope $\alpha$ flattens monotonically from $\alpha \simeq -1$ to $\alpha \simeq 0$ going from giant galaxies (ellipticals, spirals) to dwarf galaxies ($\simeq 10^8{M}_{*}$). At masses smaller than $\simeq 10^8{M}_{*}$, in the mass range dominated by nonrotational supported galaxies (e.g. dSphs), the slope steepens due to the offset in angular momentum of rotational dominated, and nonrotational dominated galaxies.

A comparison with SPH simulations finds our result in qualitative agreement with them, but the inner slope $\alpha$ at small stellar masses is flatter than that in their simulations. Density profiles become cuspy for $M_{*}$ in the range $10^4$–$10^5{M}_{\odot }$, similarly to Õnorbe.

High energy transients make up a diverse and exotic class of objects, from terrestrial lightning to $\gamma$-ray bursts at cosmological distances. In this review, we provide a detailed look at some of the more exciting transients observed over the last few years by Swift and other high energy missions.

Modified Newtonian Dynamics has one free parameter and requires an interpolation function to recover the normal Newtonian limit. We here show that this interpolation function is unnecessary in a recently proposed covariant completion of Erik Verlinde’s emergent gravity, and that Verlinde’s approach moreover fixes the function’s one free parameter. The so-derived correlation between the observed acceleration (inferred from rotation curves) and the gravitational acceleration due to merely the baryonic matter fits well with data. We then argue that the redshift-dependence of galactic rotation curves could offer a way to tell apart different versions of modified gravity from particle dark matter.

Cosmological and astrophysical surveys from radio to far-infrared, in both temperature and polarization, offer a unique view of the universe properties and of the formation and evolution of its structures. The last release, close to be finalized, of the Planck mission results sets the scene for cosmological models and parameters, while the comparison with other types of data sets raises the issue of possible tensions about some parameters, first of all the Hubble constant. At the same time, on the extragalactic side, Planck carried out the deepest systematic all-sky survey of SZ galaxy clusters and detected thousands of dusty galaxies and many hundreds of extragalactic radio sources, also allowing us to investigate many specific topics, including molecular hydrogen clouds in galactic halos. The exploitation of future generation of CMB missions and the next radio facilities will allow us to deeply investigate several topics in cosmology and astrophysics, from the existence of primordial gravitational waves to the energy releases in the primeval plasma, from the dawn ages and the epoch of reionization to the formation and evolution of early galaxies and clusters, while a wide set of open astrophysical problems can be studied with future IR missions.

We analyze the intriguing possibility of explaining both dark mass components in a galaxy: the dark matter (DM) halo and the supermassive dark compact object lying at the center, by a unified approach in terms of a quasi-relaxed system of massive, neutral fermions in general relativity. The solutions to the mass distribution of such a model that fulfill realistic halo boundary conditions inferred from observations, develop a high-density core supported by the fermion degeneracy pressure able to mimic massive black holes at the center of galaxies. Remarkably, these dense core-diluted halo configurations can explain the dynamics of the closest stars around Milky Way’s center (SgrA*) all the way to the halo rotation curve, without spoiling the baryonic bulge-disk components, for a narrow particle mass range $m{c}^2\sim 10$–$10^2$keV.

The novel idea is that the undergoing accelerated expansion of the universe happens due to infrared quantum gravity modifications at intermediate astrophysical scales of galaxies or galaxy clusters, within the framework of Asymptotically Safe gravity. The reason is that structures of matter are associated with a scale-dependent positive cosmological constant of quantum origin. In this context, no extra unproven energy scales or fine-tuning are used. Furthermore, this model was confronted with the most recent observational data from a variety of probes, and with the aid of Bayesian analysis, the most probable values of the free parameters were extracted. Finally, the model proved to be statistically equivalent with $\mathrm{\Lambda }$CDM, and thus being able to resolve naturally the concept of dark energy and its associated cosmic coincidence problem.