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# Substructure and halo density profiles in a Warm Dark Matter Cosmology

## 1. Introduction

Non-baryonic dark matter is an essential ingredient of current inflation-inspired models of cosmic structure formation in the universe. From the point of view of particle physics, there is no obvious preference for any of the predicted dark matter candidates (Colombi, Dodelson, & Widrow (1996)), which, according to their rms velocity at the time of their decoupling, can be cold, warm, or hot. From the point of view of structure formation, the most compelling candidate has been the cold dark matter. The CDM scenario for structure formation has successfully accounted for several observational facts, particularly on large scales, without introducing an additional free parameter related to its particle distribution function in phase space. However, on small scales and/or in high-density regions of the universe, the predictions of the CDM models seem to be in conflict with observations.

One of the potential problems of the CDM scenario is that the predicted number of low-mass halos —where probably dwarf galaxies form— within a Milky Way-size halo, greatly exceeds the observed abundance of satellite galaxies in the Local Group (Klypin et al. 1999, hereafter KKVP (99); Moore et al. 1999a ; see also Kauffmann et al. (1993)). A second problem is that the predicted inner density profiles of CDM halos may disagree with the shallow profiles inferred from the rotation curves of dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies (Moore (1994); Flores & Primack (1994); Burkert (1995); de Blok & McGaugh (1997); Hernández & Gilmore (1998)), although the observational data for the latter galaxies are controversial (van den Bosch et al. (1999); Swaters, Madore, & Trewhella (2000); but see Firmani et al. 2000b ). High-resolution gravitational lensing maps of a cluster of galaxies have also revealed a soft inner mass distribution in the halo of this cluster (Tyson, Kochanski, & Dell’Antonio (1998)). The rotation curve decompositions of normal galaxies and the Tully-Fisher relation obtained in galaxy formation models as well as the dark mass contained within the solar radius in our Galaxy, also point out to dark halos shallower and/or much less concentrated than those predicted by the CDM model (Avila-Reese, Firmani, & Hernández (1998); Navarro (1998); Navarro & Steinmetz (1999); Firmani & Avila-Reese (2000); Mo & Mao (2000)). If these shortcomings of the CDM scenario are confirmed with more observational and theoretical data, new alternatives (cosmological and/or astrophysical) have to be explored in order to modify the properties of the mass distribution at small scales.

In a recent burst of papers, explored alternatives include modifications to: either the nature of the dark matter candidate (e.g., Spergel & Steinhardt (2000); Hannestad 1999; Sommer-Larsen & Dolgov (2000); White & Croft (2000); Firmani et al 2000a ; Hogan & Dalcanton (2000); Moore et al. (2000); Yoshida et al. (2000) ; Burkert (2000); Peebles (2000); Hannestad & Scherrer 2000; Riotto & Tkachev 2000), or the generation of the primordial power spectrum (e.g., Kamionkowski & Liddle (1999)). More conservative astrophysical mechanisms to overcome the problems mentioned above have also been proposed (e.g., Navarro, Eke, & Frenk (1996); Gelato & Sommer-Larsen (1999); Bullock, Kravtsov, & Weinberg (2000); Binney, Gerhard, & Silk (2000)). One possible modification is to go from a CDM scenario to a warm dark matter (WDM) one. The WDM particles (warmons) would suppress the power at small scales by free-streaming out of overdense regions limiting the formation of substructure at scales below the free-streaming scale. At large scales, the structure formation would proceed in a very similar way to that of a CDM model. N-body simulations have shown that indeed large-scale structure in WDM models looks similar to that of a CDM model (Colombi et al. 1996). On the other hand, as Hogan & Dalcanton (2000) noted, the finite phase density of dark halos inferred from observations could be pointing to a non-negligible DM velocity dispersion at the time of structure formation.

Using the Press-Schechter formalism, Kamionkowski & Liddle (1999) have shown that if the CDM power spectrum is filtered at scales corresponding to dwarf galaxies, then the abundance of Milky Way satellites can be reproduced. Recently, White & Croft (2000) reported results from N-body simulations for WDM models at high redshifts. They found that the abundance of $`10^{10}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ halos is reduced by a factor of $`5`$ at $`z=3`$ with respect to the CDM model when the power spectrum is filtered at $`k2\text{h Mpc}\text{-1}`$. At the same time they showed that the Ly-$`\alpha `$ power spectrum at this redshift is very similar to that of the CDM model, which is in agreement with observations. This apparent contradictory result is explained by the fact that the collapse of large-scale structures, as they go non-linear, regenerates the initially suppressed small-scale modes in the power spectrum (White & Croft (2000)).

These results encourage us to explore in more detail the predictions of WDM N-body simulations at the present epoch. Does the suppression of power at small scales of a WDM model actually eliminate the excessive degree of substructure predicted by the CDM scenario? Are the WDM halos less concentrated? And if so, do they have a smoother inner mass distribution than their counterpart CDM halos? The main aim of this paper is to give a quantitative answer to the first question. To this end we have carried out high-resolution N-body simulations of Milky Way-size galactic halos in three different WDM models. A host halo of about $`2\times 10^{12}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ has more than $`10^5`$ particles in the simulations. Since the most successful variant of the CDM models is a flat universe with a non-zero cosmological constant ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`h=0.7`$), here we also use this cosmological model but instead of CDM we introduce WDM with the extra free parameter $`R_{f,WDM}`$: these models will be our $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$WDM models (for economy we drop off the greek letter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hereafter when we refer to either CDM or WDM models). We will also address the questions of concentrations and density profiles of dark halos, although the small number of large high-resolved halos and the small range of masses in the simulations constrain our predictions on this subject.

In Section 2 we discuss the WDM models to be explored in this paper. In Section 3 we briefly describe the numerical technique that we used for the simulations. Section 4 is devoted to the analysis and comparison with observations of the circular velocity function of satellites within host halos of Milky Way-sizes. The concentrations and density profiles of the host and satellite halos are presented in Section 5. In Section 6 we discuss some of the results, and summarize of our main conclusions is given in Section 7.

## 2. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$WDM Cosmological Models

Several observational tests such as the distribution of galaxies (e.g., Peacock & Dodds 1994), cluster mass estimates (e.g., Carlberg et al. (1996)), the determination of the baryon fraction in clusters (e.g., Mohr, Mathiesen, & Evrard (1999)), and the evolution of cluster abundance (e.g., Eke et al. (1998)) point to a cosmological CDM model with a low matter density, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_00.3`$. This model also successfully accounts for the observationally inferred values of the Hubble constant and the age of the universe. On the other hand, according to a prediction of the inflationary theory, the universe should be flat, i.e. a contribution to the density of the universe from a cosmological constant is necessary if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_00.3`$. It has been inferred recently from observations of high redshift Supernovae that the universe is expanding with positive acceleration (Perlmutter et al. (1999); Riess (1998); Schmidt et al. (1998)). Remarkably, the estimated value of the cosmological constant density parameter is in this case $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.60.8`$. Thus, the most popular cosmological model has become a flat CDM model with a non-vanishing cosmological constant: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_00.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$, and $`h=0.7`$ (the Hubble constant in units of $`100\text{km s}\text{-1}\text{ Mpc}\text{-1}`$; this value is consistent with the current observational determinations, e.g., Nevalainen & Roos (1998)). Here we will use this cosmological model but instead of CDM we will introduce WDM.

A dark matter particle is usually defined as hot or cold if at the moment of decoupling from the rest of the cosmic plasma it is relativistic or non-relativistic, respectively (Kolb & Turner (1990)). The classic and only example of detected dark matter are the neutrinos. They are hot because they were relativistic at the moment of their decoupling. If the mass of the dark matter candidate is much higher than 1 GeV and the strength of its interactions is comparable to that of the weak interaction, then it would behave as cold dark matter. The thermal velocities of these particles at the time of structure formation is negligible. In this paper we are interested in a warm DM candidate, a thermal relic that at the time of its decoupling was relativistic and whose mass $`m_W`$ is much higher than that of its hot counterpart. The Cowsik-McClelland bound prohibits any candidate with a mass larger than $`15\text{eV}`$ (assuming $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{WDM}0.3`$ and $`h=0.7`$) which decouples when the temperature of the universe was a few MeV (Cowsik & McClelland (1972)). Thus, the warmon should decouple earlier than a hot candidate, in an epoch when the total number of degrees of freedom of relativistic particles was certainly very high (Kolb & Turner (1990)).

Unlike the CDM case, the small-scale density fluctuations are damped out in a WDM scenario by the free-streaming of DM particles. It is straightforward to compute the comoving free-streaming scale $`R_{f,WDM}`$ (e.g., Sommer-Larsen & Dolgov (2000)):

$$R_{f,WDM}=0.2(\mathrm{\Omega }_{WDM}h^2)^{1/3}\left(\frac{m_W}{1\text{keV}}\right)^{4/3}\text{Mpc}.$$
(1)
The WDM scenario was not attractive in the past because of the introduction of the extra free parameter $`R_{f,WDM}`$, and because particles in the required mass range of $`100\text{eV}1\text{keV}`$ were not particularly compelling. Nevertheless, these arguments are somewhat obsolete nowadays. As mentioned in the introduction, the CDM scenario seems to be in disagreement with observational data at small scales, so that models with extra degrees of freedom might be necessary. On the other hand, light WDM candidates as palatable as the CDM ones are also predicted by particle physics beyond the standard model; one possible example are the right-handed neutrinos (e.g., Colombi, Dodelson, & Widrow (1996)).

We have represented the WDM power spectrum by the following expression (Bardeen et al. (1986); see also Sommer-Larsen & Dolgov (2000))

$$P_{WDM}(k)=T_{WDM}^2(k)P_{CDM}(k),$$
(2)
where the WDM transfer function is approximated by

$$T_{WDM}(k)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{kR_{f,WDM}}{2}\frac{(kR_{f,WDM})^2}{2}\right]$$
(3)
and $`P_{CDM}`$ is the CDM power spectrum which is in turn approximated by the following formula (Klypin & Holtzman (1997)):

$`P(k)=`$

$$\frac{Ak}{\left(11.5598k^{1/2}+47.986k+117.77k^{3/2}+321.92k^2\right)^{2\times 0.9303}}$$

(4)
This power spectrum was obtained by a direct fit to the power spectrum estimated using a Boltzmann code and is normalized to $`\sigma _8=1.0`$, close to the cluster abundance and the 4 yr COBE-DMR normalization. Here $`\sigma _8`$ is the rms of mass fluctuations estimated with the top-hat window of radius $`8h^1\text{Mpc}`$.

Since our aim is to study the substructure in Milky Way-size halos, we simulate WDM models with three different values of $`R_{f,WDM}`$ namely 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 Mpc, for which, according to eq. (1), $`m_W`$ is 605, 1017 and 1711 eV, respectively. Particle masses of this order were recently proposed with the aim to predict fewer Milky Way satellites than in the CDM scenario (Kamionkowski & Liddle (1999); White & Croft (2000)). For a 1 keV particle and for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{WDM}0.3`$, the rms velocity of the particles is $`2\text{km/s}`$ at $`z=40`$ (Hogan & Dalcanton (2000)). This velocity is too small to affect the structure of our simulated host halos. We thus do not consider in our initial conditions the thermal component contribution to the velocities of the particles.

## 3. Numerical simulations

A set of high-resolution simulations of Milky Way-size halos (defined as host halos) have been performed using a variant of the Adaptive Refinement Tree (ART) N-body code (Kravtsov, Klypin, & Khokhlov (1997)). The ART code achieves high spatial resolution by refining the base uniform grid in all high-density regions with an automated refinement algorithm. This version of the ART code (Klypin et al. (2000)) has the ability to handle particles with different mass. This is used to increase the mass and spatial resolution in few selected halos. Following, we describe the way in which the simulations have been carried out.

First, we set the number of mass levels in the mass hierarchy to four in all simulations111The number of mass levels was restricted by the amount of memory of the computer where the simulations were performed.. Particles are eight times more massive when they pass from one level to the next coarser level. For our selected number of mass levels, the mass resolution on the finest level corresponds to a box of $`256^3`$ particles. The realization of the initial spectrum of perturbations is done in such a way that this number of particles could be generated in the simulation box. The size of the simulation box is defined by the requirement of high mass resolution and by the total number of particles in the finest level. We set a box size of $`15h^1\text{Mpc}`$ on a side in all simulations which gives a mass per particle $`m_p=1.66\times 10^7h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ on the finest level of mass resolution. The omission of wavelenghts larger than $`15h^1\text{Mpc}`$ may affect the characteristic mass and spatial distribution of halos, however, we do not expect it to influence the halo internal structure (Frenk et al. (1988)). A host halo of about $`2\times 10^{12}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ resimulated at high resolution will have more than $`10^5`$ particles within its virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$, defined as the radius at which the average halo density is 334 times the background density for our selected cosmology, according to the spherical top-hat model. Once the mass hierarchy is fixed, we start by running a low-mass resolution (LMR) simulation with $`32^3`$ particles in a mesh with $`256^3`$ cells from which potential host halos are to be identified for their future resimulation and analysis.

Second, the Bound Density Maxima (BDM) group finding algorithm (e.g., Colín et al. (1999)) is used to locate potential host halos in the LMR simulation. The BDM algorithm finds the positions of local maxima in the density field smoothed at the scale of interest and applies physically motivated criteria to test whether a group of particles is a gravitationally bound halo. The friends of friends group finding algorithm is then used on these halo population to identify the degree of isolation of each halo (halos are also visually located). Only halos which are relatively isolated222There are a couple of groups with a mass $`\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{13}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ in our box. Milky Way-size halos belonging to one of these two groups were rejected for a subsequent analysis. were taken as potential host halos because we are interested in comparing our numerical results with the observed substructure in the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies (KKVP (99); Moore et al. 1999a ).

Third, we trace back all particles within a radius $`r\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}1.5r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ of each selected host halo to get their lagrangian positions at $`z=40`$. This radius is large enough to keep the contamination due to the presence of particles from the second mass level at the level of $`\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}1`$% in mass. We then regenerate the initial distribution using all particles with the four different weights (1, 8, 64, 512 $`\times m_p`$). The farther away the particle is from the host halo the more massive the particle is. The simulation with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$, for example, has 1,722,295 particles distributed as follows: 1,450,496 particles in the first-mass-level, 218,112 in the second-mass-level, and 31,040 and 22,647 in the third- and fourth-mass levels, respectively. The initial conditions are again evolved using ART with the capability of handling particles with different mass. The formal force resolution, measured by the size of a cell in the finest refinement grid, is 0.45 $`h^1`$kpc and the number of time steps varies from 325 to 41600. Accurate results are expected at distances four times larger than the formal resolution.

Fourth, the BDM is used once again now to identify satellites (guest halos) orbiting around the center of mass of host halos. One of the parameters of BDM is the number of spheres that are randomly placed on the box to locate local maxima “seeds”. We made sure not to miss a significant fraction of guest halos by using the position of every fourteenth first-mass-level particle, a number which is much higher than the expected number of halos. For example, for the $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$ model we used about $`10^5`$ seeds. Some guest halos have been polluted by more than 5% in mass with particles from the second-mass level. These guest halos are usually at the periphery of the host halos and thus are more susceptible to being contaminated. We keep them in our satellite catalogs because we think they would still be there even if we increased the size of the high-resolution region. To measure the effect on the number of satellites due to the smallness of the high-resolution volume an additional simulation for one of the host halos —the halo II in the model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$— was run doubling the radius of the high-resolution region ($`3r_v`$). The number of satellites within a sphere of radius 200 $`h^1`$kpc centered on the host halo is equal to 11 in both simulations. This does not mean that there are not any differences at all; for example, a satellite, which was close to the center ($`30h^1\text{kpc}`$) in the simulation with the smaller high-resolution region, disappears in the test simulation. However, these differences are negligible as far as the cumulative circular velocity function for satellites is concerned.

In Table 1 we present the values of some of the physical properties of the host halos re-simulated at high-resolution for each WDM model (i.e. for each selected $`R_{f,WDM}`$ value). The name tag of the host halo and its maximum circular velocity

$$V_{\mathrm{max}}=\left(\frac{GM(<r)}{r}\right)_{\mathrm{max}}^{1/2},$$
(5)
where $`M(<r)`$ is the mass of the halo inside radius $`r`$, are placed in the second and third column, respectively. The virial mass and the number of satellites within a sphere of radius $`200h^1\text{kpc}`$, centered on the host halo, are displayed in the fourth and fifth column, respectively. All satellites with more than 10 bound particles are counted here. The concentration parameter $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}`$ (Navarro, Frenk, & White (1997)) is shown in the sixth column. It is defined here as the ratio between $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ and $`r_s`$, where $`r_s`$ is the NFW scale radius. Because our simulations possess the same seed we were able to identify a couple of host halos (I and II) in our three WDM models and make an inter-comparison study of their structural properties.

We have also measured the ellipticities of the host halos using the tensor of inertia. This is defined as

$$I_{i,j}=x_ix_j/r^2,$$
(6)
where the sum is over all DM particles within $`r_{vir}`$, $`x_i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) are the coordinates of the particle with respect to the center of mass of the halo, and $`r`$ is the distance of the particle to the halo center. The ellipticities are then given by

$$e_1=1\frac{\lambda _1}{\lambda _3},e_2=1\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _3},$$
(7)
where $`\lambda _3>\lambda _2>\lambda _1`$ are the eigenvalues of the tensor of inertia. We evaluate the triaxiality parameter using the following formula (e.g.,Franx, Illingworth, & de Zeeuw (1990))

$$T=\frac{\lambda _3^2\lambda _2^2}{\lambda _3^2\lambda _1^2}$$
(8)
A value of $`T=1.0`$ means that the halo is prolate while a value of $`T=0.0`$ represents an oblate halo. The ellipticities $`e_1`$, $`e_2`$, and the triaxial parameter for host halos are shown in the last three columns. The ellipticies increase as $`R_{f,WDM}`$ diminishes. In particular, the increment is by almost a factor of two for the host halo II when one goes from the WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ to the CDM model.

Figure 1 provides a visual example of guest halos found in our diffferent models, including a CDM model. As the host halo we have selected the one denoted by the roman number II in Table 1. This halo has a $`V_{\mathrm{max}}250\text{km/s}`$ but it varies a little from model to model. The letter (a) identifies the halo in the CDM model ($`R_{f,WDM}=0`$) and letters from (b) to (d) represent the halo in WDM models from $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ to $`R_{f,WDM}=0.05\text{Mpc}`$, respectively. It is notable the absence of substructure and a greater roundness morphology of the host halo in our $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ model as compared with the CDM one, which agrees with the analysis of the host halos ellipticities of the previous paragraph.

## 4. The cumulative circular velocity function of satellites

The first interesting result that arises from our WDM simulations is that despite the power spectrum is suppressed below the free streaming scale, halos of size close to or smaller than $`R_{f,WDM}`$ are formed. This result is not obvious at all. Only high-resolution numerical simulations could show whether galactic substructures would form and survive in such a scenario with a filtered power spectrum at high wavenumbers. The number of satellites per host halo increases as $`R_{f,WDM}`$ decreases (see Table 1). This is in agreement with the numerical results at $`z=3`$ of White & Croft (2000). Their cumulative number of halos above a certain mass increases as the cut-off wavenumber $`k_0`$ increases (the power spectrum suffers a sharp drop at $`k_0`$).

The present-day cumulative maximum circular velocity satellite functions, $`N(>V_{\mathrm{max}})`$, for our four models are displayed in Figure 2. These functions were estimated as follows: for each $`R_{f,WDM}`$ value we count the number of satellites with $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ greater than a given value within 200 $`h^1`$kpc from the center of host halos. This number is then divided by the number of host halos for each model and the volume of a sphere of 200 $`h^1`$kpc radius. Although we plot this function down to $`V_{\mathrm{max}}10\text{km/s}`$ we are probably complete only to $`V_{\mathrm{max}}20\text{km/s}`$ (KKVP). As expected, the number of satellites is much smaller than the one predicted by a CDM model (KKVP; Moore et al. 1999a ; Table 1 this paper). The WDM model that seems to reproduce better the observed $`N(>V_{\mathrm{max}})`$ function (taken from KKVP) is that with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$ or $`m_w1\text{keV}`$. The discrepancy seen in Figure 2 between simulations and observations for $`V_{\mathrm{max}}\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}50\text{km/s}`$ can be attributed to the intrinsic dispersion of the mass aggregation history of host halos (Bullock, Kravtsov, & Weinberg (2000)).

Is the reduced number of satellites at present time in the WDM scenario caused only by the suppresion of power at small scales? To answer this question we counted the number of guest halos in a sphere with proper radius 200 $`h^1`$kpc centered on the host halo at $`z=1`$, which is close to the nominal epoch of formation of host halos, and compared it with the number we have at $`z=0`$. We did this only for the halo II333 The BDM algorithm finds two progenitors of the host halo I of comparable mass at $`z=1`$, so we decided not to use this halo for the argument developed in the paragraph. for which a CDM simulation had also been performed. At $`z=1`$ we obtain 29, 27, 20, and 10 guest halos for $`R_{f,WDM}=0,0.05,0.1,0.2\text{Mpc}`$, respectively while at $`z=0`$ the corresponding numbers are 28, 13, 9, and 4. Only halos with $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ greater than 20 km/s were chosen and this lower limit on $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ was increased by 20% for halos at $`z=1`$ to take into account the evolutionary reduction of $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ (e.g., Colín et al. (1999)).

The number of guest halos for the CDM model remains approximately constant within this proper volume after $`z=1`$ (Moore et al. 1999a ). Does this mean that the guest halos inside this volume are not destroyed and that small halos outside this volume do not fall later into this volume? We have done the following experiment to measure the degree of satellite destruction (Kravtsov (2000)): we have tagged all DM particles within 200 $`h^1`$kpc from the center of the host halo at $`z=0`$ and traced back them at $`z=1`$. We then apply the BDM algorithm on this subset of DM particles at $`z=1`$. The difference between the number of halos found at $`z=1`$ and its number at $`z=0`$ gives us the degree of satellite destruction. The percentage of destruction is about 35% for the CDM model while it is 63% for the WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$. Since there is indeed destruction of guest halos from $`z=1`$ to $`z=0`$, the only manner to maintain a constant number of satellites in the CDM model is by incorporating small halos from outside the chosen volume (actually, some small halos might also form within the volume; however, the probability of such an event is very low). The accretion rate of guest halos is less in the WDM models just because the number of available halos that could fall into the volume is lower than in the CDM case. We have also detected that guest halos are more easily destroyed in the WDM models. These two effects which are of comparable size work together to deliver a much smaller number of satellites at $`z=0`$.

The more efficient disruption of satellites in the WDM scenario is very likely due to the fact that guest halos are less concentrated in this scenario (see next section). In fact, we have found that the guest halos that survived until $`z=0`$ are more concentrated than those at $`z=1`$. On average, the guest halos at $`z11.5`$ are twice less concentrated than those at $`z=0`$.

## 5. Concentrations and density profiles

We define the concentration parameter $`c_{1/5}`$ as the ratio between the halo radius $`r_h`$444The halo radius $`r_h`$ is deffined as the minimum between $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ and the truncation radius (where the spherically averaged outer density profile flattens or even increases). In fact, all the host halos and most of the guest halos (more than 70%) attain their virial radius. and the radius within which 1/5 of the total halo mass $`M_h`$ is contained. In Figure 3 we plot this parameter versus the halo mass for host (large symbols) and guest (small symbols) halos for our WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ (triangles) and the CDM model (crosses). Only those halos which have more than 90 particles inside their radii have been analyzed. The solid and dashed lines in Figure 3 are extrapolations to small masses of the relations $`c_{1/5}M_h`$ found by Avila-Reese et al. (1999) for the corresponding CDM model for isolated halos and halos in groups, respectively. From Figure 3 one can see that the concentration of host WDM halos is only slightly smaller than that of CDM halos. For the small guest halos, the difference is more notable; in the $`10^910^{11}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ mass range the concentrations for the case $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ are approximately $`1.81.2`$ times smaller than those obtained in the CDM model. It is interesting to see that the extrapolations showed in Figure 3 do actually agree with the concentrations of the guest halos in our fiducial CDM model.

The density profiles of host halos obtained in our simulations with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2`$, 0.1, 0.05, and 0.0 Mpc ($`M_h13\times 10^{12}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$) are shown in Figure 4 (symbols). In order to avoid overlapping, the profiles from the $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1`$, 0.05, and 0.0 Mpc models were shifted in $`\mathrm{log}\rho `$ by $`1`$, $`2`$, and $`3`$, respectively. These density profiles are well described by the NFW formula (lines), although the inner slope in some cases of the WDM models is slightly shallower than $`r^1`$. The inner profile for the CDM halo is actually steeper than $`r^1`$. The corresponding NFW concentration parameters for the host halos are given in Table 1. For comparision, in the CDM simulation of Avila-Reese et al. (1999) a $`10^{12}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ halo has in average $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}12`$.

The guest halos ($`M_h10^910^{11}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$) present a wide diversity of density profiles. Unfortunately, since the number of particles in these halos is not very large ($`100200`$ particles for most of them), the resolution is not sufficient to study the inner density profile with accuracy (see a discussion on this subject in $`\mathrm{\S }6.2`$). For those guest halos ($`15\%`$) whose density profiles are reasonably well described by the NFW fit we obtain a mean $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}8`$ and 10 for $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2`$ and 0.05 Mpc models, respectively. We estimate a mean $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}`$ of 25 by extrapolating the results of the CDM model to low masses (Avila-Reese et al. (1999)) or by using our own CDM simulation.

## 6. Discussion

### 6.1. The accretion and destruction rates of guest halos

Our results show that in a WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$ the number of guest halos within Milky Way-size halos agrees with the observed number of satellites in the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Using the extended Press-Schechter formalism and assuming that the amount of substructure is preserved since the host halo formation epoch, Kamionkowski & Liddle (1999) also found good agreement with the observations for models with a sharp drop in the power spectrum on small scales and with zero velocity dispersion (they were interested in studying the broken-scale-invariant model). However, the cut-off length-scale in the power spectrum they requiered is two to three times smaller than the one used here in order to fit the observational data. We argue that at the basis of this difference is the fact that for models with a cut-off in the power spectrum and with negligible particle dispersion velocities, the amount of substructure in a host halo is not preserved.

In Section 4, we have shown that for the CDM model the number of satellites within a sphere of proper radius 200 $`h^1`$kpc centered on the host halo remains approximately constant from the nominal epoch of host halo formation up to the present time (see also Moore et al. 1999a ). Nevertheless, as discussed in $`\mathrm{\S }4`$, this is a particular case in which the destruction and accretion/formation rates of guest halos balance up. In WDM models, the accretion/formation rate of guest halos is smaller and the destruction rate is more efficient than the one in the CDM scenario. These two facts operate at the same time to produce a number of guest halos at $`z=0`$ much smaller than the one found at the nominal epoch of host halo formation. Therefore, Kamionkowski & Liddle (1999) overestimated the filtering scale of the power spectrum because they did not consider that a high fraction of satellites are destroyed by dynamical effects during their lifetime in the dense environment of host halos. Recently, White & Croft (2000) have reported from numerical simulations of WDM models that at $`z=3`$ the number of small halos is reduced roughly by a factor of five when the CDM spectrum is filtered at scales much larger than 0.1 Mpc. If one takes into account that a significant fraction of these halos will be destroyed by $`z=0`$ and not many small halos will be accreted, then the agreement with observations will be reached for a cut-off scale smaller than the one suggested by these authors.

Why a significant fraction of guest halos become destroyed in the WDM scenario? We offer the following answer: in a WDM model these halos form later than in a CDM model, when the mean density of the universe was lower. For example, the formation redshift (defined as the redshift where $`\sigma (M_{\mathrm{vir}},z)=1`$) of a halo of $`M_{\mathrm{vir}}=2\times 10^9h^1\text{M}\text{}`$ is 4.1 for the CDM model, whereas for the WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ it is 2.5. Thus, the characteristic overdensity $`\delta _c`$ for guest halos of this mass in this WDM model is about 4.5 lower than the corresponding for guest halos in the CDM model. If $`\delta _c`$ approximately scales as the cube of the concentration parameter, this would mean that these halos were about 1.7 less concentrated at their formation epoch. This interpretation agree with the results from our study on concentration parameters ($`\mathrm{\S }5`$). In summary, guest halos in WDM models are more easily disrupted because of their puffier density distribution

### 6.2. Density profiles of the WDM halos

We have found that the present-day density profiles of Milky Way- size galactic halos in a WDM model with a $`R_{f,WDM}`$ value corresponding to masses of the order of a few $`10^9\text{M}\text{}`$ do not differ from those obtained in CDM models. A similar result was also reported by Moore et al. (1999b). They cut the power spectrum on a mass scale smaller by more than a factor of ten than the mass of the studied cluster. The question about how the filtering of the power spectrum affects the inner density profiles of halos with masses close or smaller than the cut-off mass scale is still open (see Avila-Reese et al. 1998). Unfortunately, we could not explore this question in detail in this paper because our guest halos with masses close to $`2\times 10^9\text{M}\text{}`$ are poorly resolved (a study on this direction is in progress; small halos in a WDM cosmology are being resimulated with high-resolution). Nevertheless, we have found that the small WDM halos are actually less concentrated than the CDM ones. The difference in the mean in our extreme $`R_{f,WDM}=0.2\text{Mpc}`$ model is less than a factor of two in the $`c_{1/5}`$ parameter. We estimate that this factor is too small to offer a solution to the problem related to the inner structure of dwarf galaxy dark halos. Thus, although the WDM scenario helps, apparently it does not solve this problem. Nevertheless, some questions that remain open might change this conclusion. In the following, we discuss them.

In the monolithic collapse the orbital tangential velocity of the collapsing particles plays a significant role in the final virialized configuration; it is expected that in a hot monolithic collapse shallow cores form (e.g., van Albada (1982); Aguilar & Merrit (1990); Firmani et al. 2000b ). To produce a hot monolithic collapse in a cosmological scenario, dark matter particles should have a non-negligible velocity dispersion (thermal energy) at the redshift of the halo formation — there should also be a cut-off in the power spectrum at the scale of interest. On the other hand, if this is the case, then the formation of shallow cores with a maximum limiting density determined by the velocity dispersion is expected (Hogan & Dalcanton (2000)). These authors estimate that shallow cores, which are in agreement with observational determinations in dwarf galaxies, can be produced if warmons have a mass $`m_W200\text{eV}`$; in this case the particle dispersion velocity is significant. Of course, according to our results, a WDM model with $`m_W200\text{eV}`$ would produce too few guest halos to agree with observations. However, if the inclusion of gas within the guest halos plays an important role to avoid their disruption, then a larger fraction of guest halos could survive until the present epoch. It is probable that with an $`m_W`$ only slightly smaller than 1keV, shallow cores that explain the rotation curves of dwarf galaxies form if the velocity dispersion is taken into account. Nevertheless, as we have shown, in this case shallow cores in the massive (host) halos will not be produced. Thus, if the increment of the core radius with the halo mass or $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ inferred by Avila-Reese et al. (1998) and Firmani et al. (2000b) from observations is confirmed, then the collisionless WDM scenario is ruled out. It is interesting to note that in a self-interacting WDM model, the particle velocity dispersion would be larger than in the collisionless case (Hannestad & Scherrer (2000)). A detailed numerical study of this model, which appears to be more palatable than a self-interacting CDM model, is desirable.

Finally, we should comment that the problem of an apparently excessive number of guest halos in the CDM model holds if one assumes that each guest halo hosts a luminous galaxy. This assumption was recently challenged by Bullock et al. (2000) who proposed that reionization can efficiently inhibit dwarf galaxy formation.

## 7. Conclusions

Using high-resolution N-body simulations, we have studied the substructure inside Milky Way-size halos in a WDM cosmological scenario. We have also addressed the question whether the density profiles of host and guest halos are different from their corresponding CDM ones. Our main conclusions are:

1. Despite the fact that the power spectrum of fluctuations is suppressed at small scales, a non-negligible number of virialized structures, corresponding to these or smaller scales, form and survive within larger structures. The accretion rate of small halos is found to be less in the WDM scenario than in the CDM one. This is simply explained by the fact that a smaller number of small halos are avalaible for their incorporation into host halos in the WDM models. A higher satellite destruction rate is found in the WDM scenario as compared with the one in the CDM model: it can be accounted for the fact that guest halos are less concentrated by about a factor two in average in the WDM models. The less efficient halo accretion and the higher satellite destruction have almost the same weight as far as the final count of satellites within host halos at $`z=0`$ is concerned. The larger the $`R_{f,WDM}`$ value the greater the size of these two effects, and the smaller the abundance of satellites.

2. The predicted maximum circular velocity function of guest halos that seems to best fit the observed one for satellites in the Milky Way and Andromeda is that given by the $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1\text{Mpc}`$ model. This $`R_{f,WDM}`$ value corresponds to a warmon of mass about 1 keV.

3. For the $`R_{f,WDM}=0.1`$ and 0.2 Mpc models, guest halos ($`M_h10^910^{11}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$) have a concentration parameter $`c_{1/5}`$ which is roughly twice smaller than that of the CDM halos. For those guest halos whose density profiles are reasonably well described by a NFW parametric fit ($`15\%`$), the $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}`$ parameter is roughly $`1.53.0`$ times lower than that of the CDM halos. This difference in the concentration parameters, for both $`c_{1/5}`$ and $`c_{\mathrm{NFW}}`$, vanishes as we go to more massive halos.

4. The density profile of the host halos ($`M_{\mathrm{vir}}13\times 10^{12}h^1\text{M}\text{}`$) is well described by the NFW profile (in some cases, the inner slope is slightly shallower than $`r^1`$). The guest halos have a wide variety of density profiles and those whose masses are below the corresponding cut-off mass scale probably present a small shallow core. The poor mass resolution of the simulations at these scales limits our predictions.

In summary, we have shown that in the WDM model with $`R_{f,WDM}0.1\text{Mpc}`$ or $`m_W1\text{keV}`$ the degree of substructure within a Milky Way-size halo is much lower than in the CDM model and is in agreement with observations, if one assumes that each guest halo hosts a luminous galaxy. The problem of cuspy halos probably still persists in the WDM scenario, although we have found that halos —in particular the small ones— are less concentrated than the corresponding CDM halos. If the inclusion of baryonic matter helps to significantly avoid disruption of substructure, then the agreement with observation may continue for less massive WDM candidates for which the rms velocity is larger. In this case, the formation of shallow cores in dwarf galaxy like halos is expected. Nevertheless, as we have shown, halos of larger masses will not have a shallow core.

We are grateful to Anatoly Klypin and Andrey Kravtsov for kindly providing us a copy of the ART code in its version of multiple mass, and for enlightening discussions. We also acknowledge the anonymous referee whose helpful comments and suggestions improved some aspects of this paper. P. C. and V.A. acknowledge the hospitality of the NMSU Astronomy Department. Our ART simulations were performed at the Dirección General de Servicios de Cómputo Académico, UNAM, using an Origin-2000 computer.


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# Boomerang returns unexpectedly1footnote 11footnote 1A paper about a boomerang by an Australian and his mates.

## 1 Introduction

The study of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy holds the promise of answering many of our fundamental questions about the Universe and the origin of the large-scale structure (see e.g. Bond Bond (1996); Bennett, Turner & White BenTurWhi (1997); Lawrence, Scott & White Romans (1999)). The development of CMB research can be split into 5 main phases. Firstly, the mere existence of the CMB showed that the early Universe was hot and dense. Secondly, the blackbody nature of the CMB spectrum and its isotropic distribution implied that the Universe is approximately homogeneous on large scales. The third step came with the detection of anisotropies, confirming that structure grew through gravitational instability. Now we are entering the fourth stage, where the basic cosmological paradigm is defined. The recently released Boomerang data (de Bernardis et al. BOOM (2000)) provide support for a model with adiabatic initial conditions and a Universe with approximately flat geometry. The fact that our theories are holding up so well gives us further reason to believe that the CMB can be used as a precision cosmological tool. With the imminent launch of MAP, we are on the verge of the fifth phase, which involves determining the precise values of the fundamental cosmological parameters to figure out exactly what kind of Universe we live in.

Most of the unmined cosmological information available from the CMB anisotropy is encoded in the acoustic signatures, the series of peaks and troughs in the spectrum at subdegree scales, which we are only now beginning to probe experimentally. Because the properties of the photon-baryon oscillations are determined by the background, while the driving force is described by the model for the perturbations, the acoustic signatures provide a unique opportunity to probe both the background cosmology and the model for structure formation. For example the position of the first peak, or indeed any other feature, provides a measure of the angular diameter distance to last scattering. The relative heights of the peaks provide information about the baryon ‘drag’ on the photons and thus the baryon-to-photon ratio. The relative peak locations provide information on the perturbations as they crossed the horizon and thus indirectly on the mechanism for their production (see e.g. Hu, Sugiyama & Silk HuSugSil (1997)).

In the last year or so there have been several new CMB data sets which have begun to reveal the structure contained in the acoustic peaks (see e.g. Lineweaver Charley (1999); Dodelson & Knox DodKno (2000); Melchiorri et al. Mel (2000); Pierpaoli, Scott & White Science (2000); Efstathiou Efs (2000); Tegmark & Zaldarriaga TegZal (2000); Lahav et al. LahBriHobLasSod (2000); Le Dour et al. LeDour (2000) for analyses of these data). Now with the first estimate of the power spectrum from a sub-set of the Antarctic flight of the Boomerang experiment we are entering a whole new regime of precision. There are 3 striking things about this new power spectrum estimate. Firstly, and most importantly, it corroborates the basic picture of cosmological structure formation – the shape is a confirmation of flat models of the sort inspired by inflation, dominated by a cosmological constant, as has become the standard paradigm. Secondly, however, the position of the first peak appears at slightly larger angular scales than might have been expected. And lastly, another possibility for something unexpected comes through a hint that the second peak may not be as pronounced as most models would predict. We will make some general comments about the existence of the first acoustic peak, and then in the rest of this paper we focus on these latter two surprising features of the new data (see also Hu Hu (2000)).

## 2 A distinct acoustic peak

The presence of a narrow, well defined peak in the angular power spectrum (for which earlier evidence existed: Dodelson & Knox DodKno (2000); Melchiorri et al. Mel (2000); Pierpaoli, Scott & White Science (2000)) has important consequences. Primarily it shows that the theoretically expected acoustic peaks are in fact present in nature! A well defined narrow peak implies that whatever caused the fluctuations did so at very early times rather than actively driving the photon-baryon fluid at recombination (as would happen in models based on topological defects, for example). By the time the anisotropies formed at $`z\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3`$, the growing mode of the perturbations was dominant. The width of the peak is then essentially a measure of the inertia of the baryon-photon fluid at last scattering. The finite inertia of the fluid provides an upper limit to how fast it can respond to any impulse, and thus a minimum width to any feature in the angular power spectrum.

We show in Fig. 1 the Boomerang data from de Bernardis et al. (BOOM (2000)) along with some theoretical models and a compilation of older data from Pierpaoli et al. (Science (2000)). In comparison with the older data, the Boomerang data appear lower around the first peak. Note however that the Pierpaoli et al. (Science (2000)) points are somewhat anti-correlated with their nearest neighbors. Thus the disagreement is not quite as large as it appears. Moreover, any remaining discrepancy is consistent with the $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$% calibration uncertainty between experiments. In other words, on a power spectrum plot, one is allowed to shift the power spectrum estimates from individual data sets by as much as 20% vertically relative to each other. It appears then that the Boomerang data set has a lower overall calibration (as did the data from the Boomerang test flight, Mauskopf et al. BOOM97 (2000)) than some of the earlier experiments. However, calibration issues aside, there is remarkable agreement about the shape of the power spectrum around multipole $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}200}`$.

It is a dramatic verification of the simplest cosmological models that the existence of such a peak, made at least as early as 1970 (Peebles & Yu PeeYu (1970), where the baryon power spectrum was plotted, although the peaks were implicitly there in the photon power spectrum also) and more explicitly by the mid-1970s (e.g. Doroshkevich, Sunyaev & Zel’dovich DSZ (1978), where peaks are shown in the CMB $`k`$-space power spectrum), has been confirmed by experiment. This sort of clear test of theoretical ideas is quite uncommon in cosmology!

## 3 First peak position

The Boomerang data show a peak which lies at lower $`\mathrm{}`$ than the canonical value for a flat universe, which is $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}220}`$. The first explanation for this would be that we live in a closed universe; however it is interesting to ask what other options exist. Firstly, the peak position comes from a quadratic fit to the data between $`\mathrm{}=50`$ and 300 (de Bernardis et al. BOOM (2000)). Thus at least some of the constraint pushing the peak to lower $`\mathrm{}`$ is in the rapid decrease in power beyond the peak. We have checked that the peak position is unaffected by the precise functional form used, but it remains true that the low effective $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ may be explained partly by the same physics that makes the second peak lower than expected. Nevertheless, Fig. 1 shows clearly that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-dominated ‘concordance model’ (Ostriker & Steinhardt OstSte (1995)) does not give a good fit around the peak.

As shown in Hu & White (1996a ; 1996b ), using the first peak to measure the angular diameter distance to last scattering can be a subtle business. Fortunately the positions of the peaks are sensitive to few of the many other cosmological parameters that alter the anisotropy spectrum. If the baryon density is constrained to satisfy big-bang nucleosynthesis, then it introduces a negligible uncertainty on the peak positions. Higher order effects do not change the peak positions. Of course, any effect on the power spectrum which reduces small-scale power will also shift the peak a little to the left, but this is essentially negligible for reasonable parameters (e.g. for tilt $`0.7n1.3`$).

The major effect, then, is the angular diameter distance to last scattering and the physical matter density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}h^2`$. If we hold the distance to the last scattering surface fixed a low matter density universe, which has last scattering closer to the radiation dominated epoch, has a peak broadened and shifted leftwards. This effect is small, however, and is usually overcome by the cosmological dependence of the distance to last scattering. For a flat universe with fixed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{B}h^2`$, the distance to the last scattering surface is a function of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ and $`h`$, being shorter for high $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ or $`h`$. Thus the $`\mathrm{}`$ of the first peak decreases slightly with increasing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ or $`h`$. We show this in Fig. 2, where we plot the $`\mathrm{}`$ of the first peak as a function of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ for flat models. For reasonable cosmological parameters the first peak can be as low as 210 even in a flat universe. For $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{peak}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}210}`$, one starts violating other cosmological constraints.

Thus we have suggestive evidence that the Universe may be spatially closed. This runs counter to the observationally motivated convention of the last several years to consider only open models, and the theoretically motivated desire to extend that precisely as far as flat. Inflationary models certainly exist (e.g. Linde Lin (1995)), in which a closed universe is created ‘from nothing’ (Zel’dovich & Grishchuk ZelGri (1984)). Historically there has been much interest in closed universes (see Björnsson & Gudmundsson BjoGud (1995), White & Scott WhyNot (1996), and references therein), since the spatial surfaces are compact (Wheeler Whe (1968); Hawking Haw (1984)) and the total energy, charge and angular momentum are zero (Landau & Lifshitz LanLif (1975)). This has appealing properties of finiteness and flux conservation for formal studies, and hence has been preferred by various authors on grounds that are essentially philosophical, or at least mathematical (for an interesting historical discussion see Misner, Thorne & Wheeler MTW (1973), §21.12 and §27.1). In other words, faced with the choice of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{tot}}=1+ϵ`$ or $`1ϵ`$, there may be reasons to choose the former. Whether or not the Universe turns out to be spatially closed, open or precisely flat remains an empirical question. The suggestion that some closed models may provide a good fit to current data means at the very least that one should be democratic to both sides of the curvature likelihood function when carrying out multi-parameter cosmological explorations.

## 4 Second peak height

The new Boomerang power spectrum indicates at first sight a rather weak second peak. The important thing to say here is that there is still a great deal of power at scales $`\mathrm{}=400`$–600; the power spectrum has certainly not damped to zero. Guided by the physics of acoustic oscillations, we will assume that there is a second peak and phrase the question as: how high is it? At face value, the data would appear to indicate that any second peak is rather flat. However, we would caution that the data are probably more uncertain at these small scales, since a number of corrections need to be applied. Uncertainties in beam size, beam asymmetry, pixelization, the effects of bolometer time constant etc., can all lead to systematic effects on these scales. Nevertheless, the Boomerang team has modeled these effects and it seems that the basic prediction of the standard $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-dominated model (solid line in Fig. 1), for example, would give a higher peak than the data seem to indicate. It is therefore worth investigating how one obtains a lower second peak, in relation to the first.

A wealth of information is stored in the peak heights, but their signature is more model dependent than the locations. To obtain a large ratio of power between the first and second peaks, we would naturally like to have a large first peak, which points indirectly to a low matter density universe. The argument goes as follows (Hu & White 1996b ). Two primary effects govern the peak heights: baryon drag and the driving force of photon self-gravity. As a perturbation enters the horizon, the fluid is compressed by its self-gravity. Photon pressure resists the compression, causing the photon-baryon contribution to the potential to decay. The fluid is then released into the acoustic phase in this highly compressed state. The photons are intrinsically ‘hot’ and do not need to battle against a large gravitational potential when streaming to the observer, leading to a large temperature anisotropy on the sound horizon scale. This ‘driving effect’ does not occur if the potentials are dominated by an external source, such as cold dark matter. Thus the first peak is boosted relative to the low-$`\mathrm{}`$ plateau in universes with low matter density. The baryons additionally provide inertia to the photon-baryon fluid, enhancing the compressions into the potential wells and retarding the rarefactions struggling against the potentials. Since the first peak in adiabatic models is a compression, a high baryon content enhances the first peak.

In addition to lowering the matter density, one could obtain decaying potentials at last scattering by increasing the radiation content of the Universe, for example through decaying neutrino models (Bardeen, Bond & Efstathiou BBE (1987); Dodelson, Gyuk & Turner DGT (1994)) or volatile neutrino models (Pierpaoli & Bonometto PieBon (1999)). These models also have an enhanced first peak (White, Gelmini & Silk WGS (1995)). For a wide range of neutrino mass and lifetime, the neutrino decay happens while the modes relevant to CMB anisotropies are outside the horizon, and thus decaying neutrino models mimic models with a very large ‘equivalent number of neutrinos’ $`N_\nu `$. As an example, let us consider a model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ and $`h=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.65}`$. To fit large-scale structure we want to increase the horizon at equality by a factor $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2.6}`$, requiring $`N_\nu \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}44}`$. This can be achieved with $`\left(m_\nu /\mathrm{keV}\right)^2\left(\tau /\mathrm{yr}\right)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}500}`$. We show the effect of this in Fig. 1. Note that raising the radiation density has moved the peaks slightly rightwards – a change in the spatial curvature would be necessary to move them left again (e.g. adding $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.5}`$, long-dashed line in Fig. 1, fits the data).

Other ways of increasing the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom can achieve the same effect of increasing the height of the first peak compared with the second, for example by adding extra sterile neutrino species or using large lepton asymmetry (Kinney & Riotto KinRio (1999)). Note that the addition of massive neutrinos (hot dark matter) will generally increase the second peak height relative to the first – which does not help – although it will move the peaks slightly to the left. For reasonable neutrino masses this is likely to be a very small effect however.

The ratio of the heights of the first and second peaks is set by the physics at recombination and the primordial power spectrum. Thus it depends on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}h^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{B}h^2`$, $`n`$ and the radiation energy density (parameterized by $`N_\nu `$). The effect of tilt is to change the ratios by $`(\mathrm{}_2/\mathrm{}_1)^{n1}`$, we show the effect of changing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}h^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{B}h^2`$ in Table 1. The Boomerang data give this ratio as approximately 3, so one can see that rather extreme values of the parameters may be required.

A high baryon fraction, coupled with a low matter density or a high radiation density, in a model with less small scale power than scale-invariance predicts, would naturally produce a diminishing series of peaks, including a small second peak. Models with less small-scale power than scale-invariance can arise naturally in inflation ranging from models with power law spectra slightly tilted away from scale-invariance to models with broken power laws or even rapid drops in power at some scale (see Lyth & Riotto LytRio (1999) for a recent review). The most natural such models are the tilted models with ‘red’ spectra. The low matter density and high baryon density help to boost the first peak enough to overcome some of the effects of the tilt, making the ratio of the first to second peaks larger. And, finally, a high baryon density reduces the rarefaction peaks, of which the second peak is the first example. We should also point out that low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$ models with some tilt and high $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{B}`$ have their first peak shifted a little to the left compared with more standard models, though this is a small effect. Models with red spectra sometimes predict tensor anisotropies, which serve to lower the whole peak structure relative to the COBE normalization. This generally makes it more difficult to obtain the necessary power at the first peak.

If we tilt the spectrum to remove small scale power we are limited in how much other small-scale power reducing effects can operate. Thus a high first peak in a tilted model limits the epoch of reionization. Currently limits on the reionization optical depth are $`\tau 0.3`$ (Griffiths, Barbosa & Liddle GriBL (1999)), although this is somewhat model dependent. A strong constraint on $`\tau `$ requires combining the CMB data with information from large-scale structure.

More speculatively, the small second peak could be telling us that the peaks are more ‘washed out’ than the inflationary predictions. In other words, there may be some decaying mode left in the fluctuations, or the perturbations may not be entirely synchronized at horizon crossing, so that there may be some loss of coherence of the oscillations. Note that the first peak is well defined, so we would require a source which turned off before those modes entered the horizon, i.e. was acting only at early times, perhaps before equality. Such a source would not be ‘scaling’ and a mechanism would be required to pick out a preferred scale in the Universe, e.g. matter-radiation equality. Although this does not seem a priori very likely, it would be intriguing if the structure of the peaks told us something fundamental about the origin of the seed perturbations themselves!

A host of other possibilities exist which seem even less likely. A source of energy injection at $`z\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3`$ could delay recombination and change the damping of the anisotropies, though one would need to be careful not to distort the spectrum. Other changes in the physics of recombination could also increase damping, although it is hard to believe there is much missing in our understanding of the physics of hydrogen and helium atoms (Seager, Sasselov & Scott SSS (2000)). The damping scale is an integral over the visibility function (e.g. Hu & White Damp (1997)), so to move this to lower $`\mathrm{}`$ means delaying recombination. We show the kind of effect that would be required in Fig. 3, where we reduce the Rydberg energy by 10% and 20%. This delays recombination until lower redshift, mimicking the effect of energy injection at $`z\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1000}`$. Increasing the coupling of the photons to the baryons at higher $`z`$, for example by increasing $`n_{\mathrm{He}}/n_\mathrm{H}`$, has effects that are at the per cent level, and therefore cannot be significant. Variation in fundamental physics, such as a changing fine structure constant (e.g. Kaplinghat, Scherrer & Turner KapST (1999)) is a more speculative way to achieve this same goal. Magnetic fields are often invoked to explain unexpected phenomena, but here the simplest ideas tend to increase the small-scale anisotropies.

## 5 Conclusions

The Boomerang data provide a stunning confirmation of the reality of acoustic oscillations in the photon-baryon fluid at last scattering. The fact that the peak is at $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}200}`$ argues that the Universe is close to spatially flat. The fact that the second peak appears to be smaller than naively expected, while explicable within standard models, could be a clue to something novel in our model of structure formation.

We have argued that the high first peak relative to the second is suggestive of tilt in the primordial power spectrum, a late epoch of matter-radiation equality and a low redshift of reionization. The slightly leftwards position (relative to the precisely flat expectation) of the first peak argues for a short distance to last scattering, and in combination with the former this argues that the Universe may be (marginally) spatially closed. Whether the best-fitting models are significantly closed will require more high precision data. But in any case, it is now clear that closed models need to be considered on at least an equal footing with open models when searching the cosmological parameter space.

The key to making further progress will be the detection of a third peak. Models with a high baryon content will have a high third peak, tilted models will have a lower third peak. Lack of coherence in the oscillations would be more exciting still, since this would be harder to explain. The detection of a second feature in the power spectrum would pin down the fundamental mode of the baryon-photon fluid at last scattering and put us well on our way towards reconstructing the model of structure formation.

Further measurement of the second peak should come with analysis of the full Boomerang 98 data-set, together with data from the MAXIMA<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2http://cfpa.berkeley.edu/group/cmb/ After this paper was submitted the results of the MAXIMA-1 flight were released (Hanany Hanany (2000)). They show impressive confirmation of the basic picture presented by the Boomerang data, including the weakness of the second peak. Although the MAXIMA-1 data show no strong preference for closed models, we wish to emphasize that there is still a large region of closed model parameter space which needs to be explored. VSA<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/telescopes/vsa/index.html, DASI<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4http://astro.uchicago.edu/dasi/ and CBI<sup>5</sup><sup>5</sup>5http://astro.caltech.edu/$``$tjp/CBI/ experiments. In addition long-duration CMB balloon flights in the next couple of seasons, as well as the imminent launch of MAP<sup>6</sup><sup>6</sup>6http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/, should produce much more precise measurements of the relevant $`\mathrm{}`$ range.

The new Boomerang results have shown a remarkable confirmation of the conventional picture for structure formation. On top of that, it is exciting that the data show some hints of a couple of surprises. To make it easier to fit the first peak position, it may be worth bearing in mind the possibility that the Universe may be spatially closed. And, for consistency with the structure of the subsidiary peaks, it is worth keeping an open mind to the possibility that there may yet be some important physical effects which are not contained within the simplest versions of the current standard paradigm.

M. White is supported by the US National Science Foundation, DS and EP by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. EP is a National Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.


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# Thermodynamics’ 0-th-Law in a nonextensive scenario

## I Introduction

Tsallis’ thermostatistics offers a suitable and quite significant generalization of the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics, that has found multiple applications . However, it can not yet comfortably deal with thermodynamics’ zero-th law, as pointed out by Tsallis himself in . In  Abe has advanced an interesting, tentative solution to the zero-th law conundrum with reference to the micro-canonical analysis of a system composed of two-subsystems in thermal equilibrium. Such an analysis leads to the appearance of temperatures that depend upon the nonextensive partition function $`\overline{Z}_q`$,where $`q`$ is the Tsallis’ non-extensivity index.

As shown by the present authors in a recent study , one can recast Tsallis’ variational problem (using normalized expectation values) in such a manner that the extremum one thereby finds is guaranteed to correspond to a maximum (and not to other types of extrema) of Tsallis information measure

$$\frac{S_q}{k}=\frac{1Tr(\widehat{\rho }^q)}{q1},$$
(1)
($`\widehat{\rho }`$ is the density operator and $`k`$ is the Boltzmann constant, or more generally, the information unit) because the associated Hessian is diagonal. This treatment involves a new set of Lagrange multipiers $`\lambda _j^{}`$, to be referred to as the “Optimal set” (OLM), different, but related, to the original Tsallis-Mendes-Plastino (TMP) one ($`\lambda _j`$’s)

$$\lambda _j^{}=\frac{\lambda _j}{\overline{Z}_q^{1q}},$$
(2)
where the partition function $`\overline{Z}_q`$ is involved.

Another interesting work in this context is that of Ref. , where it is shown that for those particular systems whose partition function is given by $`Z_{BG}l^a(\beta ^{})^a`$ ($`a`$ is a dimensionless parameter, and $`l`$ is a characteristic length), the inverse (thermodynamical) temperature becomes associated with our $`\beta ^{}`$ and not with the TMP $`\beta `$.

In the present effort we tackle the vexing zero-th law problem starting with the working hypothesis that $`1/\beta ^{}`$ is indeed the temperature. We show that such a hypothesis reconciles Tsallis’ formalism with the zero-th law. A price has to be paid, of course. The important relations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{E}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_q}{k}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\beta `$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\beta }}\left(\mathrm{ln}_qZ_q\right)`$ $`=`$ $`E,`$ (4)
lose their basic character, because $`\beta `$ depends upon the partition function. They are however recovered in the $`q1`$ limit.

We shall tackle the zero-th law problem starting with the hypothesis of : one deals with the Hamiltonian of a system composed of two independent subsystems (in the sense that their mutual interaction is negligible). The system’s density operator is product of those pertaining to the subsystems. Before, however, a short recapitulation is necessary.

## II Main results of the OLM formalism

The most general quantal treatment is made in a basis-independent way, which requires consideration of the statistical operator (or density operator) $`\widehat{\rho }`$ that maximizes Tsallis’ entropy, subject to the foreknowledge of $`M`$ generalized expectation values (corresponding to $`M`$ operators $`\widehat{O}_j`$).

Tsallis’ normalized probability distribution  is obtained by following the well known MaxEnt route . Instead of effecting the variational treatment of , involving Lagrange multipliers $`\lambda _j`$, we pursue the alternative path developed in , with Lagrange multipliers $`\lambda _j^{}`$. One maximizes Tsallis’ generalized entropy (1)  subject to the constraints (generalized expectation values)

$`Tr(\widehat{\rho })`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ (5)
$`Tr\left[\widehat{\rho }^q\left(\widehat{O}_j\widehat{O}_j_q\right)\right]`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (6)
where $`\widehat{O}_j`$ ($`j=1,\mathrm{},M`$) denote the M relevant observables (the observation level ), whose generalized expectation values

$$\widehat{O}_j_q=\frac{Tr(\widehat{\rho }^q\widehat{O}_j)}{Tr(\widehat{\rho }^q)},$$
(7)
are (assumedly) a priori known. The resulting density operator reads

$$\widehat{\rho }=\overline{Z}_q^1\left[1(1q)\underset{j}{\overset{M}{}}\lambda _j^{}\left(\widehat{O}_j\widehat{O}_j_q\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{1q}},$$
(8)
where $`\overline{Z}_q`$ stands for the partition function

$$\overline{Z}_q=Tr\left[1(1q)\underset{j}{}\lambda _j^{}\left(\widehat{O}_j\widehat{O}_j_q\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{1q}}.$$
(9)
It is shown in  that

$$Tr(\widehat{\rho }^q)=\overline{Z}_q^{1q},$$
(10)
and that Tsallis’ entropy can be cast as

$$S_q=k\mathrm{ln}_q\overline{Z}_q,$$
(11)
with $`\mathrm{ln}_q\overline{Z}_q=(1\overline{Z}_q^{1q})/(q1)`$. These results coincide with those of TMP  in their normalized treatment. If, following , we define now

$$\mathrm{ln}_qZ_q=\mathrm{ln}_q\overline{Z}_q\overline{Z}_q^{1q}\underset{j}{}\lambda _j^{}\widehat{O}_j_q,$$
(12)
we are straightforwardly led to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\widehat{O}_j_q}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_q}{k}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Z}_q^{1q}\lambda _j^{}`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\lambda _j^{}}}\left(\mathrm{ln}_qZ_q\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Z}_q^{1q}\widehat{O}_j_q.`$ (14)
Equations (13) and (14) are modified Information Theory relations of the type that one uses to build up, à la Jaynes , Statistical Mechanics. The basic Legendre-structure relations (of which (3) and (4) are the canonical example) can be recovered in the limit $`q1`$.

As a special instance of Eqs. (13) and (14) let us discuss the Canonical Ensemble, where they adopt the appearance

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{U_q}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_q}{k}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Z}_q^{1q}\beta ^{}`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\beta ^{}}}\left(\mathrm{ln}_qZ_q\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Z}_q^{1q}U_q,`$ (16)
with (see equation (12))

$$\mathrm{ln}_qZ_q=\mathrm{ln}_q\overline{Z}_q\beta ^{}U_q.$$
(17)
Equations (15) and (16) can be translated into (3) and (4) via (2).

## III Thermodynamical equilibrium

We tackle now the question we wish to address in this effort: to discuss anew the problem of thermodynamical equilibrium on the basis of the results of the preceding Section. Let us consider a composed isolated Hamiltonian system $`A+B`$, within the framework of the Microcanonical Ensemble. These two subsystems interact via heat exchange.

Following Gibbs, we make the usual assumptions :

1. The interaction energy is negligible

$$\widehat{}(A+B)\widehat{}(A)+\widehat{}(B).$$
(18)
2. The subsystems $`A`$ and $`B`$ are essentially independent in the sense of the theory of probabilities, i.e.

$$\widehat{\rho }(A+B)\widehat{\rho }(A)\widehat{\rho }(B).$$
(19)

The energy distributions are here given, for each system, by specializing (8) and (9) to the instance $`M=1`$ and $`\widehat{O}_1^{(G)}\widehat{}(G),G=A,B`$. It easily follows from Eq. (7) that

$$U_q(A+B)=U_q(A)+U_q(B).$$
(20)
Now, after a bit of algebra Eq. (1) yields (pseudo-additivity )

$$\frac{S_q(A+B)}{k(A+B)}=\frac{S_q(A)}{k(A)}+\frac{S_q(B)}{k(B)}+(1q)\frac{S_q(A)}{k(A)}\frac{S_q(B)}{k(B)},$$
(21)
which we here recast in the fashion

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}\left[1+\frac{(1q)S_q(A+B)}{k(A+B)}\right]}{1q}}=`$ (22)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}\left[1+\frac{(1q)S_q(A)}{k(A)}\right]}{1q}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}\left[1+\frac{(1q)S_q(B)}{k(B)}\right]}{1q}},`$ (23)
where we have made it explicit the fact that the constant $`k`$ could, eventually, depend upon the system’s nature.

Focus attention now upon Eqs. (20) and (22). For a closed system, both energy and entropy are conserved. As a consequence:

$`\delta U_q(A)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta U_q(B),`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Tr[\rho (A)]^q}}\delta \left({\displaystyle \frac{S_q(A)}{k(A)}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Tr[\rho (B)]^q}}\delta \left({\displaystyle \frac{S_q(B)}{k(B)}}\right).`$ (25)
Introduction of (10) into (25) yields now

$$\frac{1}{\overline{Z}_q(A)^{1q}}\delta \left(\frac{S_q(A)}{k(A)}\right)=\frac{1}{\overline{Z}_q(B)^{1q}}\delta \left(\frac{S_q(B)}{k(B)}\right).$$
(26)
The next step is to consider the ratio between (26) and (24), keeping in mind (15). One immediately finds the equality

$$\beta ^{}(A)=\beta ^{}(B),$$
(27)
i.e., if we set $`\beta ^{}1/T`$, thermal equilibrium between $`A`$ and $`B`$ arises in a natural fashion and the thermodynamics’ zero-th law is obtained. This constitutes the essential result of the present effort. Notice that one assumes here that $`\beta ^{}`$, not $`\beta `$ (as in ), is proportional to $`\frac{1}{T}`$, a fact first observed in  for those special systems whose partition function is of the form $`Z_{BG}l^a(\beta ^{})^a`$, with $`a`$ a dimensionless parameter, and $`l`$ a characteristic length.

In terms of $`\beta `$ (the TMP Lagrange multiplier) we have

$$\frac{\beta (A)}{\overline{Z}_q^{1q}(A)}=\frac{\beta (B)}{\overline{Z}_q^{1q}(B)}.$$
(28)
To take $`\beta `$ as proportional to $`\frac{1}{T}`$ forces one to work with a temperature that depends upon the partition function .

The present work shows that one can reconcile the zero-th law with Tsallis’ thermostatistics without going to the limit $`q1`$. In order to assess to what an extent have we succeeded it remains to ascertain the self-consistency of the Gibbs’ hypothesis (18,19) within our nonextensive framework. We reconsider the application of Eq. (8) to our present situation and define

$$\widehat{F}(A)=\left[1(1q)\beta \left(\widehat{}(A)U_q(A)\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{1q}},$$
(29)
with a similar expression for $`\widehat{F}(B)`$. We have then

$$\widehat{\rho }(A)\widehat{\rho }(B)=\frac{\widehat{F}(A)}{\overline{Z}_q(A)}\frac{\widehat{F}(B)}{\overline{Z}_q(B)},$$
(30)
which, after explicit evaluation, and keeping just first order terms gives

$`\widehat{\rho }(A+B)=\widehat{\rho }(A)\widehat{\rho }(B)`$ (31)
$`(1q)\beta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{[\widehat{}(A)U_q(A)]}{\overline{Z}_q(A)}}{\displaystyle \frac{[\widehat{}(B)U_q(B)]}{\overline{Z}_q(B)}},`$ (32)
which is the promised result. As pointed out in , our subsystems are not exactly independent. But the last term on the r.h.s. of the above expression is negligible for i) high temperatures, ii) the thermodynamic limit (see below), or, of course, for iii) $`q`$-values close to unity.

## IV Conclusions

We have carefully reconsidered the validity of the zero-th law of thermodynamics in a Tsallis’ environment. It has been shown to remain approximately valid.

The question revolves around the independence of two independent subsystems and $`A`$, $`B`$ that are brought into thermal contact. We have found that they can indeed be regarded as independent in quite important instances:

* 1) $`q1`$, of course,
* 2) in the high temperature limit, and
* 3) for systems in contact with a heat reservoir, because, if $`A`$, say, is the reservoir, $`[\widehat{}(A)U_q(A)]`$ is a null operator (the mean energy of a reservoir coincides, by definition, with one of its eigenenergies ). Now you invoke implicitly the heat reservoir notion whenever you use a thermometer!

Summing up, for practical purposes the zero-th law of thermodynamics is valid in a Tsallis scenario.

###### Acknowledgements.

The financial support of the National Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina is gratefully acknowledged. F. Pennini acknowledges financial support from UNLP, Argentina.