Merger vs. Accretion and the Structure of Dark Matter Halos

High-resolution N-body simulations of hierarchical clustering in a wide variety of cos-mogonies show that the density prooles of dark matter halos are universal, with low mass halos being denser than their more massive counterparts. This mass-density correlation is interpreted as reeecting the earlier typical formation time of less massive objects. We investigate this hypothesis in the light of formation times deened as the epoch at which halos experience their last major merger. Such halo formation times are calculated by means of a modiication of the extended Press & Schechter formalism which includes a phenomenological frontier, m , between tiny and notable relative mass captures leading to the distinction between merger and accretion. For m 0:6, we connrm that the characteristic density of halos is essentially proportional to the mean density of the universe at their time of formation. Yet, proportionality with respect to the critical density yields slightly better results for open universes. In addition, we nd that the scale radius of halos is also essentially proportional to their virial radius at the time of formation. We show that these two relations are consistent with the following simple scenario. Violent relaxation caused by mergers rearranges the structure of halos leading to the same density proole with universal values of the dimensionless characteristic density and scale radius. Between mergers, halos grow gradually through the accretion of surrounding layers by keeping their central parts steady and expanding their virial radius as the critical density of the universe diminishes.