Sophia Gad-Nasr

Paper abstract:
We study the evolution of isolated self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) halos that undergo gravothermal collapse and are driven deep into the short-mean-free-path regime. We discuss the structure of the halo core deep in the core-collapsed regime and how it depends on the particle physics properties of dark matter, in particular, the velocity dependence of the self-interaction cross section, to find an approximate universality deep in this regime that allows us to connect the evolution in the short- and long-mean-free-path regimes, and approximately map the velocity-dependent self-interaction cross sections to constant ones for the full gravothermal evolution. We Our results are essential for estimating the masses of the black holes that are likely to be left in the core of SIDM halos.