The Subhalo Mass Function and Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter

Abstract: Warm dark matter has recently become increasingly constrained by observational inferences about the low-mass end of the subhalo mass function, which would be suppressed by dark matter free streaming in the early Universe. In this work, we point out that a constraint can be placed on ultralight bosonic dark matter (often referred to as "fuzzy dark matter") based on similar considerations. Recent limits on warm dark matter from strong gravitational lensing of quasars and from fluctuations in stellar streams separately translate to a lower limit of $\sim 2.1 \times 10^{-21}$ eV on the mass of an ultralight boson comprising all dark matter. These limits are complementary to constraints on ultralight dark matter from the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and are subject to a completely different set of assumptions and systematic uncertainties. Taken together, these probes strongly suggest that dark matter with a mass $\sim 10^{-22}$ eV is not a viable way to reconcile differences between cold dark matter simulations and observations of structure on small scales.