Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 346 3 Solution 2026-09-28
The definition of the virial radius of a dark-matter halo immediately gives the virial mass of a dark-matter haloIn an Einstein-de Sitter universe, spherical collapse gives , conventionally rounded to about .
For the Navarro--Frenk--White profile, put . Direct integration givesUsing and therefore yieldsAt small radius the bracket is , so , consistent with the central cusp. At large radius it is , so the mass diverges logarithmically unless the halo is truncated.
The primordial free streaming of warm dark matter erases small-scale density fluctuations and lowers the central phase-space density, tending to replace the smallest, earliest cold-dark-matter cusps by shallower central profiles or cores.
Since , the spherical potential that vanishes at infinity isIndeed, , and normalization at requiresThe circular speed is consequentlyIt rises as near the centre, peaks at , and then declines approximately as . Increasing the concentration of a dark-matter halo moves the peak inward in units of and raises it relative to . Thus an NFW curve can be fairly broad but is not exactly a flat galaxy rotation curve; stellar and gas contributions matter when comparing with an observed galaxy rotation curve.
Lower-mass haloes typically collapse earlier, when the cosmic background density is larger. Their characteristic inner densities are consequently larger relative to the present virial density, producing the mass-concentration relation of dark-matter haloes in which concentration decreases weakly with mass.
For a mass smaller by ,and . HenceA halo of roughly and kiloparsec scale naturally hosts a dwarf galaxy, possibly an extremely faint one if star formation is inefficient.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 320 2 a Solution 2026-09-28
SetThe spherical Poisson equation givesThe numerator identitysplits this into two scale-free density-potential components:Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 320 3 b Solution 2026-09-28
PutPart a giveswhile the host circular speed is . The Chandrasekhar dynamical friction acceleration reduces to the radius-independent valueAssume stripped material leaves with the satellite's instantaneous specific angular momentum. The remaining orbit then obeysSince ,For initial radius ,andIn this ideal cusp, radius and remaining mass both reach zero at the finite time .