Luminous "Dark" Halos

Mark A. Walker

Published 1999-08-10, updated 2000-08-07Version 2

Several lines of evidence suggest that cold, dense gas clouds make a substantial contribution to the total mass of dark halos. If so then physical collisions between clouds must occur; these cause strong, radiative shocks to propagate through the cold gas, with the startling implication that all ``dark'' halos must be luminous. The expected luminosity is a strong function of halo velocity dispersion, and should contribute a significant fraction of the observed X-ray emission from clusters of galaxies, if dark halos are predominantly made of cold gas. Existing data do not exclude this possibility; indeed two particular expectations of the luminous-halo model are borne out in the X-ray data, and thus give support to the cold-cloud dark matter model. First we find a luminosity-temperature correlation of the form L proportional to T to the power 11/4, as seen in recent analyses of cluster samples. Secondly the anticipated spectra have substantially more power at low energies than isothermal bremsstrahlung spectra, and might account for the observed ``excess'' EUV emission seen from some clusters. The successes of the luminous-halo model are particularly remarkable because the theory has no free parameters or ad hoc elements. The model can be tested by the X-ray satellite Chandra, which should resolve the Virgo cluster into 10,000 point-like, transient X-ray sources. Non-detection of any such sources by Chandra can constrain the contribution of cold gas clouds to below 1% of the total matter density in the Universe, assuming Virgo to be representative.