We simulate the formation and evolution of ultralight bosonic dark matter halos from cosmological initial conditions. Using zoom-in techniques we are able to resolve the detailed interior structure of the halos. We observe the formation of solitonic cores and confirm the core-halo mass relation previously found by Schive et al. The cores exhibit strong quasi-normal oscillations that remain largely undamped on evolutionary timescales. On the other hand, no conclusive growth of the core mass by condensation or relaxation can be detected. In the incoherent halo surrounding the cores, the scalar field density profiles and velocity distributions show no significant deviation from collisionless N-body simulations on scales larger than the coherence length. Our results are consistent with the core properties being determined mainly by the coherence length at the time of virialization, whereas the Schrödinger-Vlasov correspondence explains the halo properties when averaged on scales greater than the coherence length.

We study cosmological structure formation with ultralight axion dark matter, or "fuzzy dark matter" (FDM), using a particle-mesh scheme to account for the quantum pressure arising in the Madelung formulation of the Schrödinger-Poisson equations. Subpercent-level energy conservation and correct linear behavior are demonstrated. Whereas the code gives rise to the same core-halo profiles as direct simulations of the Schrödinger equation, it does not reproduce the detailed interference patterns. In cosmological simulations with FDM initial conditions, we find a maximum relative difference of O(10%) in the power spectrum near the quantum Jeans length compared to using a standard N-body code with identical initial conditions. This shows that the effect of quantum pressure during nonlinear structure formation cannot be neglected for precision constraints on a dark matter component consisting of ultralight axions.

We present zoom-in simulations of fuzzy dark matter (FDM) halos including baryons and starformation with sufficient resolution to follow the formation and evolution of central solitons. We find that their properties are determined by the local dark matter velocity dispersion in the combined dark matter-baryon gravitational potential. This motivates a simple prescription to estimate the radial density profiles of FDM cores in the presence of baryons. As cores become more massive and compact if baryons are included, galactic rotation curve measurements are likely harder to reconcile with FDM.

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