1. |
- Malhan, Khyati, et al.
(author)
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Butterfly in a Cocoon, Understanding the Origin and Morphology of Globular Cluster Streams : The Case of GD-1
- 2019
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In: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 881:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Tidally disrupted globular cluster (GC) streams are usually observed, and therefore perceived, as narrow, linear, and one-dimensional structures in the 6D phase space. Here, we show that the GD-1 stellar stream, which is the tidal debris of a disrupted GC, possesses a secondary diffuse and extended stellar component (similar to 100 pc wide) around it, detected at the >5 sigma confidence level. Similar morphological properties are seen in synthetic streams that are produced from star clusters that are formed within dark matter sub-halos and then accrete onto a massive host galaxy. This lends credence to the idea that the progenitor of the highly retrograde GD-1 stream was originally formed outside of the Milky Way in a now defunct dark satellite galaxy. We deem that in future studies, this newly found cocoon component may serve as a structural hallmark to distinguish between the in situ and ex situ (accreted) formed GC streams.
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2. |
- Wu, Youjia, et al.
(author)
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Uncertainties in direct dark matter detection in light of Gaia's escape velocity measurements
- 2019
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 1475-7516. ; :10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Direct detection experiments have set increasingly stringent limits on the cross section for spin-independent dark matter-nucleon interactions. In obtaining such limits, experiments primarily assume the standard halo model (SHM) as the distribution of dark matter in our Milky Way. Three astrophysical parameters are required to define the SHM: the local dark matter escape velocity, the local dark matter density and the circular velocity of the sun around the center of the galaxy. This paper studies the effect of the uncertainties in these three astrophysical parameters on the XENON1T exclusion limits using the publicly available DDCalc code. We compare limits obtained using the widely assumed escape velocity from the RAVE survey and the newly calculated escape velocity by Monari et al. using Gaia data. Our study finds that the astrophysical uncertainties are dominated by the uncertainty in the escape velocity (independent of the best fit value) at dark matter masses below 6 GeV and can lead to a variation of nearly 6 orders of magnitude in the exclusion limits at 4 GeV. Above a WIMP mass of 6GeV, the uncertainty becomes dominated by the local dark matter density, leading to uncertainties of factors of similar to 10 (3) at 6 (15) GeV WIMP mass in the exclusion limits. Additionally, this work finds that the updated best fit value for the escape velocity based on Gaia data leads to only very minor changes to the effects of the astrophysical uncertainties on the XENON1T exclusion limits.
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