On the Dynamical Heating of Dwarf Galaxies in a Fuzzy Dark Matter Halo

Understand

Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM), consisting of ultralight bosons, is an intriguing alternative to Cold Dark Matter.

• Numerical simulations solving the Schr\"odinger-Poisson (SP) equation, which governs FDM dynamics, show that FDM halos consist of a central solitonic core (representing the ground state of the SP equation), surrounded by a large envelope of excited states.
• Wave interference gives rise to order unity density fluctuations throughout the envelope and causes the soliton to undergo density oscillations and execute a confined random walk in the central region of the halo.
• The resulting gravitational potential perturbations are an efficient source of dynamical heating.