Dark matter in the solar system III: The distribution function of WIMPs at the Earth from gravitational capture

Abstract

In this last paper in a series of three on weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter in the solar system, we focus on WIMPs bound to the system by gravitationally scattering off of planets. We present simulations of WIMP orbits in a toy solar system consisting of only the Sun and Jupiter. As previous work suggested, we find that the density of gravitationally captured WIMPs at the Earth is small and largely insensitive to the details of elastic scattering in the Sun. However, we find that the density of gravitationally captured WIMPs may be affected by external Galactic gravitational fields. If such fields are unimportant, the density of gravitationally captured WIMPs at the Earth should be similar to the maximum density of WIMPs captured in the solar system by elastic scattering in the Sun. Using standard assumptions about the halo WIMP distribution function, we find that the gravitationally captured WIMPs contribute negligibly to direct detection event rates. While these WIMPs do dominate the annihilation rate of WIMPs in the Earth, the resulting event rate in neutrino telescopes is too low to be observed in next-generation neutrino telescopes.

arXiv comment24 pages, 11 figures, to be submitted

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Cited by in corpus (39)

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• Interpreting Dark Matter Direct Detection Independently of the Local Velocity and Density Distribution
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• Dark Sunshine: Detecting Dark Matter through Dark Photons from the Sun
• Exoplanets as Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detectors
• Effect of Gravitational Focusing on Annual Modulation in Dark-Matter Direct-Detection Experiments
• PPPC 4 DM$\nu$: A Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Neutrinos from DM annihilations in the Sun
• Dark matter in the solar system I: The distribution function of WIMPs at the Earth from solar capture
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• Impact of Dark Matter Velocity Distributions on Capture Rates in the Sun
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• Dark Photons in the Solar Basin
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• Thermalization time scales for WIMP capture by the Sun in effective theories
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• Dark Exoplanets
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• Capture of primordial black holes in extrasolar systems
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• Direct Detection of Dark Matter Bound to the Earth
• Ultra cold neutron trap as a tool to search for dark matter with long-range radius of forces
• Direct detection signatures of a primordial Solar dark matter halo
• Orbital Dynamics of the Solar Basin
• Gravitational Focusing of Low-Velocity Dark Matter on the Earth's Surface