Mapping Dark Matter in the Milky Way using Normalizing Flows and Gaia DR3

Abstract

We present a novel, data-driven analysis of Galactic dynamics, using unsupervised machine learning -- in the form of density estimation with normalizing flows -- to learn the underlying phase space distribution of 6 million nearby stars from the Gaia DR3 catalog. Solving the equilibrium collisionless Boltzmann equation, we calculate -- for the first time ever -- a model-free, unbinned estimate of the local acceleration and mass density fields within a 3 kpc sphere around the Sun. As our approach makes no assumptions about symmetries, we can test for signs of disequilibrium in our results. We find our results are consistent with equilibrium at the 10% level, limited by the current precision of the normalizing flows. After subtracting the known contribution of stars and gas from the calculated mass density, we find clear evidence for dark matter throughout the analyzed volume. Assuming spherical symmetry and averaging mass density measurements, we find a local dark matter density of $0.47\pm 0.05$ GeV/cm${}^3$. We compute the dark matter density at four radii in the stellar halo and fit to a generalized NFW profile. Although the uncertainties are large, we find a profile broadly consistent with recent analyses.

33 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables, minor typo correction

References in corpus (81)

• Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization
• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• The Gaia mission
• Gaia Data Release 3: Summary of the content and survey properties
• Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)
• Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations
• A 3D Dust Map Based on Gaia, Pan-STARRS 1 and 2MASS
• Normalizing Flows: An Introduction and Review of Current Methods
• Fourier Features Let Networks Learn High Frequency Functions in Low Dimensional Domains
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: The astrometric solution
• Cosmological Parameters from Observations of Galaxy Clusters
• The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way
• Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• The Proper Motion of Sgr A*: II. The Mass of Sgr A*
• Gaia Data Release 2: using Gaia parallaxes
• Modelling the Galactic Interstellar Extinction Distribution in Three Dimensions
• Weak lensing mass reconstruction of the interacting cluster 1E0657-558: Direct evidence for the existence of dark matter
• A dynamically young and perturbed Milky Way disk
• The Local Dark Matter Density
• Vertical waves in the solar neighbourhood in Gaia DR2
• The Circular Velocity Curve of the Milky Way from $5$ to $25$ kpc
• Gaia Data Release 3 Properties and validation of the radial velocities
• The Milky Way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2
• Baryons Matter: Why Luminous Satellite Galaxies Have Reduced Central Masses
• The distribution of dark matter in galaxies
• Galactoseismology: Discovery of Vertical Waves in the Galactic Disk
• The wobbly Galaxy: kinematics north and south with RAVE red clump giants
• Stars, Gas, and Dark Matter in the Solar Neighborhood
• Photo-astrometric distances, extinctions, and astrophysical parameters for Gaia DR2 stars brighter than G = 18
• Gaia Data Release 3: Analysis of the Gaia BP/RP spectra using the General Stellar Parameterizer from Photometry
• The Milky Way's rotation curve out to 100 kpc and its constraint on the Galactic mass distribution
• Constraining the Galaxy's dark halo with RAVE stars
• Dark matter local density determination: recent observations and future prospects
• Dynamical constraints on the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way
• Simultaneous calibration of spectro-photometric distances and the Gaia DR2 parallax zero-point offset with deep learning
• Distances and parallax bias in Gaia DR2
• Estimating distances from parallaxes. II. Performance of Bayesian distance estimators on a Gaia-like catalogue
• On the estimation of the Local Dark Matter Density using the rotation curve of the Milky Way
• The Gaia astrophysical parameters inference system (Apsis). Pre-launch description
• Stellar Inventory of the Solar Neighborhood using Gaia DR1
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: Acceleration of the solar system from Gaia astrometry
• Weighing the local dark matter with RAVE red clump stars
• Flow Matching for Generative Modeling
• The Gravitational Force Field of the Galaxy Measured From the Kinematics of RR Lyrae in Gaia
• Constraining a Thin Dark Matter Disk with Gaia
• Using Gaia DR2 to Constrain Local Dark Matter Density and Thin Dark Disk
• The Local Dark Matter Density from SDSS-SEGUE G-dwarfs
• The Dark Matter Profiles in the Milky Way
• The Circular Velocity Curve of the Milky Way from 5 to 25 kpc using luminous red giant branch star
• Handling the Uncertainties in the Galactic Dark Matter Distribution for Particle Dark Matter Searches
• The Rotation Curve, Mass Distribution and Dark Matter Content of the Milky Way from Classical Cepheids
• A centrally heated dark halo for our Galaxy
• The distribution function of the Galaxy's dark halo
• Uncertainties in the Galactic dark matter distribution: an update
• Measuring the local dark matter density with LAMOST DR5 and Gaia DR2
• Bayesian reconstruction of the Milky Way dark matter distribution
• Determining the local dark matter density with LAMOST data
• First Gaia dynamical model of the Milky Way disc with six phase space coordinates: a test for galaxy dynamics
• A measurement of the Galactic plane mass density from binary pulsar accelerations
• Weighing the Galactic disk using phase-space spirals II. Most stringent constraints to a thin dark disk using Gaia EDR3
• Bringing the Galaxy's dark halo to life
• Kinematics and dynamics of Gaia red clump stars
• Updated Kinematic Constraints on a Dark Disk
• Action-based distribution function modelling for constraining the shape of the Galactic dark matter halo
• Improving and generalizing flow-based generative models with minibatch optimal transport
• Gaia Data Release 3: G_RVS photometry from the RVS spectra
• Dynamical model of the Milky Way using APOGEE and Gaia data
• Constraints on the Shape of the Milky Way Dark Matter Halo from Jeans Equations Applied to SDSS Data
• Improving \textsl{Gaia} parallax precision with a data-driven model of stars
• Eclipse timing the Milky Way's gravitational potential
• Weighing the Galactic disk in sub-regions of the solar neighbourhood using Gaia DR2
• Charting Galactic Accelerations: When and How to Extract a Unique Potential from the Distribution Function
• Estimating the local dark matter density in a non-axisymmetric wobbling disc
• The North/South Asymmetry of the Galaxy: Possible Connection to the Vertical Phase Space Snail
• Measuring Galactic Dark Matter through Unsupervised Machine Learning
• Connecting the local stellar halo and its dark matter density to dwarf galaxies via blue stragglers
• The visibility of the Galactic bulge in optical surveys. Application to the Gaia mission
• Deep Potential: Recovering the gravitational potential from a snapshot of phase space
• GalaxyFlow: Upsampling Hydrodynamical Simulations for Realistic Mock Stellar Catalogs

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Local dark matter density from Gaia DR3 K-dwarfs using Gaussian processes
• Dark Secrets of Baryons: Illuminating Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions with JWST
• Searching for Particle Dark Matter with eROSITA Early Data
• Earth-Scattering Induced Modulation in Low-Threshold Dark Matter Experiments
• Search for a photon peak from keV-scale dark matter annihilation with NuSTAR: Constraints on $⟨\sigma v⟩$ after 11 years of observations
• SENSEI: A Search for Diurnal Modulation in sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering
• Cavity, lumped-circuit, and spin-based detection of axion dark matter: differences and similarities
• Spiral Tuning of Wire-metamaterial Cavity for Plasma Haloscope
• Dynamical Models of the Milky Way in Action Space with LAMOST DR8 and GAIA EDR3
• Extended Haloscope Search and Exclusion of a Candidate Signal near 1.036 GHz