Astrophysics (Index)About

Navarro-Frenk-White profile

(NFW profile)
(a dark matter spatial mass distribution function)

The Navarro-Frenk-White profile (NFW profile) is a spatial mass distribution function (not "mass function" in the sense of a PMF) for the internals of dark matter halos, developed from cosmological N-body simulations run by Navarro, Frenk, and White. The distribution has been adopted for use within other models.

            ρ0
ρ(r) = ———————————————
       (r/Rs)(1+r/Rs)2

The latter two (parameters) must be chosen to fit the halo. Generalized NFW profiles (GNFW profiles) generalize this model: example using a form attributed to Zhao (Zhao profile):

            ρ0
ρ(r) = ——————————————————
       (r/Rs)β(1+r/Rs)3-β

(model,dark matter,function)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarro-Frenk-White_profile
http://www.astro.yale.edu/vdbosch/jerusalem_lecture3.pdf
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996ApJ...462..563N/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996MNRAS.278..488Z/abstract

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