The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Oscar Agertz. Profile photo.

Oscar Agertz

Associate Professor / Senior university lecturer / Wallenberg Academy Fellow

Oscar Agertz. Profile photo.

Systematic uncertainties in the determination of the local dark matter density

Author

  • Miguel Pato
  • Oscar Agertz
  • Gianfranco Bertone
  • Ben Moore
  • Romain Teyssier

Summary, in English

A precise determination of the local dark matter density and an accurate control over the corresponding uncertainties are of paramount importance for dark matter (DM) searches. Using very recent high-resolution numerical simulations of a Milky Way like object, we study the systematic uncertainties that affect the determination of the local dark matter density based on dynamical measurements in the Galaxy. In particular, extracting from the simulation with baryons the orientation of the Galactic stellar disk with respect to the DM distribution, we study the DM density for an observer located at ∼8kpc from the Galactic center on the stellar disk, ρ0. This quantity is found to be always larger than the average density in a spherical shell of the same radius ρ̄0, which is the quantity inferred from dynamical measurements in the Galaxy, and to vary in the range ρ0/ρ̄0=1.01-1. 41. This suggests that the actual dark matter density in the solar neighborhood is on average 21% larger than the value inferred from most dynamical measurements, and that the associated systematic errors are larger than the statistical errors recently discussed in the literature.

Publishing year

2010-07-29

Language

English

Publication/Series

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

Volume

82

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Physical Society

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1550-7998