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Jeans model for the shapes of self-interacting dark matter halos

Yilber Fabian Bautista1,2,*, Andrew Robertson3,†, Laura Sagunski4,‡, Adam Smith-Orlik5,§, and Sean Tulin5,∥

  • *Contact author: yfabian.bautista@ed.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: arobertson@carnegiescience.edu
  • ‡Contact author: sagunski@itp.uni-frankfurt.de
  • §Contact author: asorlik@yorku.ca
  • ∥Contact author: stulin@yorku.ca
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023049 – Published 28 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/49g1-vmlm

Abstract

The Jeans model is a semianalytical approach to modeling self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) that works remarkably well to reproduce the spherically averaged halo profiles from observations and simulations of relaxed galaxies and galaxy clusters. However, SIDM halos are not spherically symmetric in general since they respond to nonspherical baryon distributions and retain nonsphericity from their initial collapse. In this work, we generalize the Jeans model to describe SIDM density profiles and halo shapes beyond spherical symmetry. Observational tests via halo shapes are especially important for testing SIDM in massive galaxies, M200∼1012–1013M⊙, where SIDM and collisionless dark matter halos can have indistinguishable spherically averaged profiles but distinct halo shapes. We validate our model by comparing to cosmological simulations with baryons for both SIDM with σ/m=1  cm2/g and collisionless cold dark matter. Our approach differs from previous work in this direction, taking into account the fact that multiple scatterings are required to impact the shape of the halo, as well as being computationally inexpensive to implement. The nonspherical Jeans model can be used in conjunction with halo shape observations (e.g., from gravitational lensing or x-ray data) to directly constrain dark matter self-interactions.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023049– Published 28 July, 2026
  • Received 20 November 2025
  • Accepted 17 June 2026
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