Probing Self-interacting Dark Matter with Disk Galaxies in Cluster Environments

Understand

Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) has long been proposed as a solution to small scale problems posed by standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM).

• We use numerical simulations to study the effect of dark matter interactions on the morphology of disk galaxies falling into galaxy clusters.
• The effective drag force on dark matter leads to offsets of the stellar disk with respect to the surrounding halo, causing distortions in the disk.
• For anisotropic scattering cross-sections of 0.5 and 1.0$\,\textrm{cm}^{2}\textrm{g}^{-1}$, we show that potentially observable warps, asymmetries, and thickening of the disk occur in simulations.