Interference with gravitational instability: Hot and fuzzy dark matter

Wave or fuzzy dark matter produced with high momenta behaves in many ways like hot particle dark matter while also possessing seemingly different phenomenology due to wave interference. We develop wave perturbation theory to show that white noise density fluctuations generated by the interference of high-momenta waves are gravitationally unstable in the usual way during matter domination above the free-streaming scale and stabilize below the free-streaming scale, much like the analogous effects for massive neutrinos in hot dark matter. We verify and illustrate these effects in the density power spectra of Newtonian Schrödinger-Poisson simulations. In the cosmological context, this would cause a gradual suppression of the initial white noise isocurvature perturbations below the free-streaming scale at matter radiation equality, unlike cold dark matter isocurvature fluctuations, and virial stability of dark matter halos.. Authors: Liu, Rayne [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP)] (ORCID:0000000332748964); Hu, Wayne [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP)] (ORCID:0000000265527159); Xiao, Huangyu [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000324855700). DOE Contract: 89243024CSC000002; SC0009924. Subjects: 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; axion-like particles; cosmology; dark matter