Self-Consistent Rotation Curves for Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos With Embedded Disks

The inconsistency that is associated with modelling some types of dark matter halos with cold dark matter is avoided in this thesis by implementing self-interacting dark matter. The halo is split into two regions; an inner region that takes into account the interactions between dark matter particles and an outer region where the interactions are negligible. The Poisson equation of the total potential is solved for the inner region which includes the density of an infinitely thin exponential disk and an isothermal dark matter halo. By combining the two mass components, an axisymmetric equilibrium model is constructed. When the Poisson equation has been solved for each component, the modelled rotation curve is reproduced and fit parameters are altered until a good fit is achieved. The outer region is modelled by a Navarro-Frenk-White profile (often used to model dark matter halos) and the two regions are matched at a radius where the average number of interactions of a dark matter particle is one in the lifetime of the halo.