A dark matter disc in the Milky Way
J. I. Read, V. Debattista, O. Agertz, L. Mayer, A. M. Brooks, F., Governato, G. Lake

TL;DR
This paper demonstrates that a dark matter disc, formed through hierarchical galaxy formation processes, significantly influences local dark matter detection signals and can be inferred from associated stellar populations.
Contribution
It introduces the first inclusion of baryonic matter effects in simulations predicting the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way, revealing a dark disc's impact on detection experiments.
Findings
Dark matter disc contributes 0.25-1 times the halo density at the solar position.
A dark disc shares a similar velocity distribution with a thick stellar disc.
The dark disc enhances WIMP detection signals and modulates annual detection rates.
Abstract
Predicting the local flux of dark matter particles is vital for dark matter direct detection experiments. To date, such predictions have been based on simulations that model the dark matter alone. Here we include the influence of the baryonic matter for the first time. We use two different approaches. Firstly, we use dark matter only simulations to estimate the expected merger history for a Milky Way mass galaxy, and then add a thin stellar disc to measure its effect. Secondly, we use three cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of Milky Way mass galaxies. In both cases, we find that a stellar/gas disc at high redshift (z~1) causes merging satellites to be preferentially dragged towards the disc plane. This results in an accreted dark matter disc that contributes ~0.25 - 1 times the non-rotating halo density at the solar position. An associated thick stellar disc forms with the dark disc…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
