Measuring the local dark matter density with LAMOST DR5 and Gaia DR2

TL;DR

This study uses kinematic data from LAMOST DR5 and Gaia DR2 to measure the local dark matter density in the Milky Way, addressing discrepancies between northern and southern measurements and analyzing various systematic effects.

Contribution

It provides a new measurement of the local dark matter density using a large stellar sample and examines the impact of systematic uncertainties and asymmetries.

Findings

Estimated local dark matter density is approximately 0.0133 M_sun/pc^3.

Northern and southern subsamples show discrepancies likely due to velocity dispersion plateaux.

Considering the tilt term has minimal effect on the density estimate.

Abstract

We apply the vertical Jeans equation to the kinematics of Milky Way stars in the solar neighbourhood to measure the local dark matter density. More than 90,000 G- and K-type dwarf stars are selected from the cross-matched sample of LAMOST DR5 and Gaia DR2 for our analyses. The mass models applied consist of a single exponential stellar disc, a razor thin gas disc and a constant dark matter density. We first consider the simplified vertical Jeans equation which ignores the tilt term and assumes a flat rotation curve. Under a Gaussian prior on the total stellar surface density, the local dark matter density inferred from Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations is $0.0133_{-0.0022}^{+0.0024}\ {\rm M}_{\odot}\,{\rm pc}^{-3}$. The local dark matter densities for subsamples in an azimuthal angle range of $-10^{\circ} < \phi < 5^{\circ}$ are consistent within their 1$\sigma$ errors. However, the northern and southern subsamples show a large discrepancy due to plateaux in the northern and southern vertical velocity dispersion profiles. These plateaux may be the cause of the different estimates of the dark matter density between the north and south. Taking the tilt term into account has little effect on the parameter estimations and does not explain the north and south asymmetry. Taking half of the difference of $\sigma_{z}$ profiles as unknown systematic errors, we then obtain consistent measurements for the northern and southern subsamples. We discuss the influence of the vertical data range, the scale height of the tracer population, the vertical distribution of stars and the sample size on the uncertainty of the determination of the local dark matter density.