Caustic rings of dark matter

Abstract

It is shown that the infall of collisionless dark matter onto isolated galaxies produces a series of caustic rings in the halo dark matter distribution. The properties of these caustics are investigated. The density profile of the caustic is derived for a specific case. Bumps in the rotation curve of NGC 3198 are interpreted as due to caustic rings of dark matter.

Comments: 12 pages, 1 figure, Latex, minor changes, version to to be published by Phys. Lett. B