Bayesian reconstruction of the Milky Way dark matter distribution

Abstract

We develop a novel Bayesian methodology aimed at reliably and precisely inferring the distribution of dark matter within the Milky Way using rotation curve data. We identify a subset of the available rotation curve tracers that are mutually consistent with each other, thus eliminating data sets that might suffer from systematic bias. We investigate different models for the mass distribution of the luminous (baryonic) component that bracket the range of likely morphologies. We demonstrate the statistical performance of our method on simulated data in terms of coverage, fractional distance, and mean squared error. Applying it to Milky Way data we measure the local dark matter density at the solar circle ρ 0 to be ρ 0 = 0.43 ± 0.02(stat) ± 0.01(sys) GeV/cm 3 , with an accuracy ∼ 6%. This result is robust to the assumed baryonic morphology. The scale radius and inner slope of the dark matter profile are degenerate and cannot be individually determined with high accuracy. We show that these results are robust to several possible residual systematic errors in the rotation curve data.

Phenomenology of magnetic black holes with electroweak-symmetric coronas

“…For the local dark matter density in our solar system, we use ρ local ≈ 0.4 GeV cm −3 [40] and virial velocity v ≈ 10 −3 [41].…”

On the change of old neutron star masses with galactocentric distance

“…M (60 kpc) = (4 ± 0.7) × 10 11 M ⊙ [103,104], together with, e.g., the [102] local density ρ ⊙ , allows to fix the density profile parameters [97]. 6 γ-rays observations [104] have also been used to constraint the Einasto profile parameters, together with mass modelling [105,106] obtaining constraints in agreement with those of [85], and with our fiducial case: 0.10 < α < 0.22, 8 < r −2 < 30 kpc.…”

Impact of uncertainties in the halo velocity profile on direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter

“…Our limited understanding of the dark matter (DM) halo structure, both local and Galactic, constitutes one of the largest sources of uncertainty in direct and indirect DM searches. As astrophysical observations present many challenges in determining the mass, density, shape and velocity profile of dark matter (see, e.g., [1][2][3], where the latter is based on the recent results from the Gaia satellite), the method of choice for studying DM halo properties has often been based on numerical simulations of large scale structures. These, however, until recently suffered from lacking to account for the baryonic component, or an oversimplified implementation of its role.…”