Globular Clusters and Dark Satellite Galaxies through the Stream Velocity

The formation of purely baryonic globular clusters with no gravitationally bound dark matter is still a theoretical challenge. We show that these objects might form naturally whenever there is a relative stream velocity between baryons and dark matter. The stream velocity causes a phase shift between linear modes of baryonic and dark matter perturbations, which translates to a spatial offset between the two components when they collapse. For a 2sigma (3sigma) density fluctuation, baryonic clumps with masses in the range 1e5 - 2.5e6 Msun (1e5 - 4e6 Msun) collapse outside the virial radii of their counterpart dark matter halos. These objects could survive as long-lived dark matter-free objects and might conceivably become globular clusters. In addition, their dark matter counterparts, which were deprived of gas, might become dark satellite galaxies.

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