Measurement of the dark matter velocity anisotropy profile in galaxy clusters

Dark matter halos contribute the major part of the mass of galaxy clusters and the formation of these cosmological structures have been investigated in numerical simulations. Observations have been found to be in good agreement with the numerical predictions regarding the spatial distribution of dark matter, i.e. the mass profile. However, the dynamics of dark matter in halos has so far proved a greater challenge to probe observationally. We have used observations of 16 relaxed galaxy clusters to show that the dark matter velocity dispersion is larger along the radial direction than along the tangential, and that the magnitude of this velocity anisotropy β varies with radius. This measurement implies that the collective behaviour of dark matter particles is fundamentally different from that of baryonic particles and constrains the self-interaction per unit mass. The radial variation of the anisotropy velocity agrees with the predictions so that, on cluster scales, there is now excellent agreement between numerical predictions and observations regarding the phase space of dark matter.