RT Journal Article
T1 The Smith Cloud and its dark matter halo: survival of a Galactic disc passage
A1 Nichols, Matthew
A1 Mirabal Barrios, Néstor
A1 Agertz, Oscar
A1 Lockman, Felix J.
A1 Bland-Hawthorn, Joss
AB Under conservative assumptions about the Galaxy, the derived velocity of the Smith Cloud indicates that it will have undergone at least one passage of the Galactic disc. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we examine the present-day structure of the Smith Cloud and find that a dark matter supported cloud is able to reproduce the observed present-day neutral hydrogen mass, column density distribution and morphology. In this case, the dark matter halo becomes elongated owing to the tidal interaction with the Galactic disc. Clouds in models neglecting dark matter confinement are destroyed upon disc passage, unless the initial cloud mass is well in excess of what is observed today. We then determine integrated flux upper limits to the gamma-ray emission around such a hypothesized dark matter core in the Smith Cloud. No statistically significant core or extended gamma-ray emission are detected down to a 95 per cent confidence level upper limit of 1.4 x 10(-10) ph cm(-2) s(-1) in the 1-300 GeV energy range. For the derived distance of 12.4 kpc, the Fermi upper limits set the first tentative constraints on the dark matter cross-sections annihilating into tau(+)tau(-) and b (b) over bar for a high-velocity cloud.
PB Oxford Univ Press
SN 0035-8711
YR 2014
FD 2014-08-21
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/34014
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/34014
LA eng
NO © 2013 RAS.This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Monthly noticies of the Royal Astronomical Society, following peer review. The version of record The Smith Cloud and its dark matter halo: survival of a Galactic disc passage, is available online at: http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/442/4/2883.full.pdf+html.N.M. acknowledges support from the Spanish taxpayers through a Ramón y Cajal fellowship and the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme under grant MultiDark CSD2009-00064. All numerical simulations were conducted on the RCC Midway cluster at the University of Chicago. OA is grateful to Doug Rudd for making the use of the Midway cluster a smooth experience. We thank Tarek Hassan for his help with general technicalities.
NO Spanish taxpayers through a Ramon y Cajal fellowship
NO Consolider-Ingenio Programme
DS Docta Complutense
RD 21 abr 2025