Probing the structure of the cold dark matter halo with ancient mica

Abstract

Mica can store (for >1 Gy) etchable tracks caused by atoms recoiling from WIMPs. Ancient mica is a directional detector despite the complex motions it makes with respect to the WIMP "wind". We can exploit the properties of directionality and long integration time to probe for structure in the dark matter halo of our galaxy. We compute a sample of possible signals in mica for a plausible model of halo structure.

7 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (2)

• A Prescription for Building the Milky Way's Halo from Disrupted Satellites
• Unique Signature of Dark Matter in Ancient Mica

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Scattering searches for dark matter in subhalos: neutron stars, cosmic rays, and old rocks
• Digging for Dark Matter: Spectral Analysis and Discovery Potential of Paleo-Detectors
• Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter. A Whitepaper
• Projected Sensitivity of Paleo-Detectors to Dark Matter Effective Interactions with Nuclei