Cosmological Constraints from Rotation Curves of Disk Galaxies

Abstract

High-resolution N--body simulations show a remarkable similarity in the structure of dark matter halos formed through dissipationless hierarchical clustering. Independent of halo mass, power spectrum, and cosmological parameters, the density profiles of dark halos can be accurately fit by scaling a simple two-parameter profile. The two parameters of the fit, which can be expressed as the mass and characteristic density of each halo, are strongly correlated. The characteristic density is directly proportional to the mean density of the universe at the time of assembly of each halo. Low mass halos have higher characteristic densities, reflecting their higher collapse redshift. Using this halo structure to fit the rotation curves of a large sample of disk galaxies, we show that halos formed in the standard cold dark matter (CDM) scenario are too centrally concentrated to be consistent with the rotation curves of low-surface brightness galaxies. Less concentrated halos, such as those formed in a low-density, flat CDM universe ($Ω_0=0.3$, $Λ=0.7$), are favored by these observations. Our fits also indicate that the dark halo is important at all radii, and that its total mass is strongly correlated with the luminosity of the galaxy. This model provides a natural explanation for the disk-halo conspiracy and for the lack of dependence of the Tully-Fisher relation on galaxy surface brightness.