Reshaping our understanding on structure formation with the quantum nature of the dark matter

Abstract

We study the nonlinear structure formation in cosmology accounting for the quantum nature of the dark matter (DM) particles in the initial conditions at decoupling, as well as in the relaxation and stability of the DM halos. Different from cosmological N-body simulations, we use a thermodynamic approach for collisionless systems of self-gravitating fermions in general relativity, in which the halos reach the steady state by maximizing a coarse-grained entropy. We show the ability of this approach to provide answers to crucial open problems in cosmology, among others: the mass and nature of the DM particle, the formation and nature of supermassive black holes in the early Universe, the nature of the intermediate mass black holes in small halos, and the core-cusp problem.