Spacecraft calorimetry as a test of the dark matter scattering model for flyby anomalies
arXiv:0910.1564
Abstract
In previous papers we have shown that scattering of spacecraft nucleons from dark matter gravitationally bound to the earth gives a possible explanation of the flyby velocity anomalies. In addition to flyby velocity changes arising from the average over the scattering cross section of the collision-induced nucleon velocity change, there will be spacecraft temperature increases arising from the mean squared fluctuation of the collision-induced velocity change. We give here a quantitative treatment of this effect, and suggest that careful calorimetry on spacecraft traversing the region below 70,000 km where the flyby velocity changes take place could verify, or at a minimum place significant constraints, on the dark matter scattering model.
Latex, 7 pages; v1 also submitted in single spaced format as a white paper to the NAS decadal review on biological and physical sciences in space; v2 has corrections to Sec. III