ON THE LOCAL DARK MATTER DENSITY

By Jo Bovy, S. Tremaine. 2012

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An analysis of the kinematics of 412 stars at 1–4 kpc from the Galactic midplane by Moni Bidin et al. has claimed to derive a local density of dark matter that is an order of magnitude below standard expectations. We show that this result is incorrect and that it arises from the assumption that the mean azimuthal velocity of the stellar tracers is independent of Galactocentric radius at all heights. We substitute the assumption, supported by data, that the circular speed is independent of radius in the midplane. We demonstrate that the assumption of constant mean azimuthal velocity is implausible by showing that it requires the circular velocity to drop more steeply than allowed by any plausible mass model, with or without dark matter, at large heights above the midplane. Using the approximation that the circular-velocity curve is flat in the midplane, we find that the data imply a local dark matter density of 0.008 ± 0.003 M☉ pc−3 = 0.3 ± 0.1 GeV cm−3, fully consistent with standard estimates of this quantity. This is the most robust direct measurement of the local dark matter density to date.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

The local dark matter density (2014, background): “Firstly, Bovy & Tremaine (2012) showed that the Moni Bidin et al. (2012) measurement hinged on an erroneous assumption that the mean azimuthal velocity of stellar tracers vφ(R, z) is constant.”
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS: PROPERTIES OF THE STELLAR HALO AND THE MILKY WAY MASS DISTRIBUTION (2014, result): “Our result is in good agreement with the recent estimates of 0.3±0.1 GeV cm−3 by Bovy & Tremaine (2012), 0.40±0.04 GeV cm−3 by McMillan (2011) or 0.389±0.025 GeV cm−3 by Catena & Ullio (2010).”
Dark Matter through the Higgs portal (2019, unknown): “[279–288] for more details.”
Gamma Ray Signals from Dark Matter: Concepts, Status and Prospects (2012, background): “4 GeV cm−3 the local DM density [68–71] (see Ref.”
The Milky Way’s stellar disk (2013, methodology): “Using ≃9000 K-type dwarfs from SDSS/SEGUE, they found 0.0065 ± 0.0025M⊙ pc−3, which in conjunction with Bovy & Tremaine (2012) yields ρDM = 0.0075± 0.0021M⊙ pc−3, or 0.28± 0.08GeVcm−3.”
THE MILKY WAY'S CIRCULAR-VELOCITY CURVE BETWEEN 4 AND 14 kpc FROM APOGEE DATA (2012, methodology): “…combination (B2−A2)/(2πG), which is the correction term that must be added to the local dark-matter density to account for a non-flat rotation curve, when the local dark-matter density is inferred from local vertical kinematics using the cylindrical Poisson equation (e.g., Bovy & Tremaine 2012).”
A DIRECT DYNAMICAL MEASUREMENT OF THE MILKY WAY'S DISK SURFACE DENSITY PROFILE, DISK SCALE LENGTH, AND DARK MATTER PROFILE AT 4 kpc ≲ R ≲ 9 kpc (2013, methodology): “They can be combined with other constraints, such as measurements of the vertical mass distribution as in Bovy & Tremaine (2012) and Zhang et al. (2013), and constraints on the rotation curve from the terminal velocity curve or based on stellar tracers.”
STARS, GAS, AND DARK MATTER IN THE SOLAR NEIGHBORHOOD (2015, background): “However, v R z,c ( ) generally varies with R for z 0¹ even if the rotation curve is flat at z 0= (Bovy & Tremaine 2012).”
Direct detection of strongly interacting sub-GeV dark matter via electron recoils (2019, methodology): “eraged differential ionization cross section, dh˙nl ion vi dE e = ˙ e 82 ˜eE e Z dqjF DM(q)j2 fnl ion(k;q) 2 (v min(q;E e)): (3.1b) – 6 – Here, we used the local DM energy density ˆ ˜ = 0:3 GeV/cm3 [77], (n;l) identiﬁes the atomic shells, f(v) is the local speed distribution of the DM at the detecto”
Constraining the Galaxy's dark halo with RAVE stars (2014, methodology): “Clearly these results are in excellent agreement with the data points, which show the estimates of Bovy & Tremaine (2012), Kuijken & Gilmore (1991), Korchagin et al. (2003), Holmberg & Flynn (2004), Bienaymé et al. (2006), Bienaymé et al. (2014) and Zhang et al. (2013).”
The Local Dark Matter Density (2012, background): “However, as pointed out by Bovy and Tremaine (2012) their result is plagued by arbitrary assumptions: differentz dependence of the tracers circular velocity and/or different kinematical st tus and spatial distribution can trigger a large number of different possible mass models, some of themcl ar…”
THE SHAPE OF THE INNER MILKY WAY HALO FROM OBSERVATIONS OF THE PAL 5 AND GD–1 STELLAR STREAMS (2016, methodology): “Because these are not measured at the same location (the rotation curve being measured at Z = 0 and the vertical force measured at |Z| = 1.1 kpc), we move the radial-force measurements from the rotation curve to |Z| = 1.1 kpc using the fact that ∂FR/∂Z = ∂FZ/∂R (Bovy & Tremaine 2012) and assuming th”
galpy: A python LIBRARY FOR GALACTIC DYNAMICS (2014, result): “The local dark-mater density ρDM = 0.008 M pc−3 is in good agreement with current constraints (e.g., Bovy & Tremaine 2012; Zhang et al. 2013; Piffl et al. 2014) as is the escape velocity (e.g., Smith et al. 2007).”
Colloquium: Annual modulation of dark matter (2013, background): “…as 3Estimates for the local density of the smooth dark matter component are model dependent and vary in the literature by as much as a factor of 2 (Caldwell and Ostriker, 1981; Catena and Ullio, 2010; Pato et al., 2010; Salucci et al., 2010; Weber and de Boer, 2010; Bovy and Tremaine, 2012).”