Tidal disruption of solitons in self-interacting ultralight axion dark matter

Understand

Ultralight axions (ULAs) are promising dark matter candidates that can have a distinct impact on the formation and evolution of structure on nonlinear scales relative to the cold, collisionless dark matter (CDM) paradigm.

• However, most studies of structure formation in ULA models do not include the effects of self-interactions, which are expected to arise generically.
• Here, we study how the tidal evolution of solitons is affected by ULA self-interaction strength and sign.
• Specifically, using the pseudospectral solver UltraDark.jl, we simulate the tidal disruption of self-interacting solitonic cores as they orbit a $10^{11}~M_{\mathrm{\odot}}$ Navarro-Frenk-White CDM host halo potential for a range of orbital parameters, assuming a fiducial ULA particle mass of $10^{-22}\mathrm{eV}$.