Related papers: Dark Matter Debris Flows in the Milky Way
We use fully self-consistent N-body simulations of barred galaxies to show that dynamical friction from a dense dark matter halo dramatically slows the rotation rate of bars. Our result supports previous theoretical predictions for a bar…
Measurements of the accelerations of stars enabled by time-series extreme-precision spectroscopic observations, from pulsar timing, and from eclipsing binary stars in the Solar Neighborhood offer insights into the mass distribution of the…
The Milky Way lies in a thin plane, the Local Sheet, a part of a wall bounding the Local Void lying toward the north supergalactic pole. Galaxies with accurate distances both above and below this supergalactic equatorial plane have…
The astronomical dark matter could be made of weakly interacting and massive particles. If so, these species would be abundant inside the Milky Way, where they would continuously annihilate and produce cosmic rays. Those annihilation…
Predicting the local flux of dark matter particles is vital for dark matter direct detection experiments. To date, such predictions have been based on simulations that model the dark matter alone. Here we include the influence of the…
We consider models in which a dark-matter particle decays to a slightly less massive daughter particle and a noninteracting massless particle. The decay gives the daughter particle a small velocity kick. Self-gravitating dark-matter halos…
I review current efforts to measure the mean density of dark matter near the Sun. This encodes valuable dynamical information about our Galaxy and is also of great importance for 'direct detection' dark matter experiments. I discuss…
The hierarchical model of galaxy formation predicts that the Milky Way halo is populated by tidal debris of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. Due to long dynamical times, debris from the lowest mass objects remains coherent as thin and…
The Milky Way Galaxy contains a large, spherical component which is believed to harbor a substantial amount of unseen matter. Recent observations indirectly suggest that as much as half of this ``dark matter'' may be in the form of old,…
The distribution of shapes of galaxies' dark halos provides a basic test for models of galaxy formation. To-date, few dark halo shapes have been measured, and the results of different methods appear contradictory. Here, we add to the sample…
Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theory, a pillar of modern cosmology and astrophysics, predicts the existence of a large number of starless dark matter halos surrounding the Milky Way (MW). However, clear observational evidence of these "dark"…
The Milky Way's dark matter halo is thought to contain large numbers of smaller subhalos. These objects can contain very high densities of dark matter, and produce potentially observable fluxes of gamma rays. In this article, we study the…
The growing trove of precision astrometric observations from the Gaia space telescope and other surveys is revealing the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way in ever more exquisite detail. We summarize the current status of our…
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) travel from the Galactic Centre across the dark matter halo of the Milky Way, where they are observed with velocities in excess of the Galactic escape speed. Because of their quasi-radial trajectories, they…
The dark matter halo of the Milky Way is predicted to contain a very large number of smaller subhalos. As a result of the dark matter annihilations taking place within such objects, the most nearby and massive subhalos could appear as…
Simulations of tidal streams show that close encounters with dark matter subhalos induce density gaps and distortions in on-sky path along the streams. Accordingly, observing disrupted streams in the Galactic halo would substantiate the…
We analyze self-consistent N-body simulations of the Milky Way disk and the ongoing disruption of the Sagittarius dwarf satellite to study the effect of Sagittarius tidal debris on dark matter detection experiments. In agreement with…
An excess of gamma rays has been identified at the centre of the Milky Way, and annihilation of dark matter has been posited as a potential source. This hypothesis faces significant challenges: difficulty characterizing astrophysical…
The observed population of the Milky Way satellite galaxies offer a unique testing ground for galaxy formation theory on small-scales. Our novel approach was to investigate the clustering of the known Milky Way satellite galaxies and to…
We study the vertical stellar distribution of the Milky Way thin disk in detail with particular focus on the outer disk. We treat the galactic disk as a gravitationally coupled, three-component system consisting of stars, atomic hydrogen…