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The First Stars and Galaxies: Challenges for the Next Decade Participants
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Poster
Title: The Impact of Cold Dark Matter Variants on the Halos of the First Stars and Galaxies: Angular Momentum and Vortex Creation in BEC Dark Matter Author(s): Tanja Rindler-Daller Abstract: The formation of the first stars and galaxies depended upon the internal structure of their host dark matter halos, especially the central regions, where baryonic cooling and condensation are likely to have occured first. While the halos of standard, collisionless, cold dark matter (CDM) are characterized by the singular NFW density profile, some forms of cold dark matter have been proposed which alter this universal behavior on small scales by flattening the central profile. Among these are light bosonic particles that form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). We shall explore one aspect of the impact of this hypothesis on the structure of the halos underlying the first stars and galaxies, the effects of the angular momentum that results from tidal torquing during large-scale structure formation. In particular, we show that quantum vortices are favoured in halos which form from strongly-coupled BEC/CDM particles, as a result of their superfluidity. Vortex creation causes the central density to drop, thus affecting the dynamics of the baryonic component and star formation.
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