Are Halos of Collisionless Cold Dark Matter Collisionless?

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Much recent discussion about dark matter has been centered on two seemingly independent problems: the abundance of substructure in dark matter halos, and the cuspiness of the halos' inner density profile. We explore possible connections between the two problems by studying the gravitational scattering effects due to subhalos on the phase-space distribution of dark matter particles in the main halos. Our series of controlled numerical experiments indicates that the number and mass density of subhalos can be high enough to cause the collisionless dark matter particles in the inner part of a main halo to diffuse, flattening the main halo's inner cusp within a few dynamical times. Depending on the masses and concentration of the subhalos, the inner density profile of the whole system (main plus sub halos) can either steepen or flatten. Subhalo accretion can therefore introduce significant scatter in the inner density profiles of dark matter halos, offering a possible explanation for the range of profiles seen in both observations and cosmological simulations.