Fine structure of dark matter halos and its effect on terrestrial detection experiments.
Terrestrial dark matter detection experiments probe the velocity-space distribution of dark matter particles in the vicinity of the Earth. We present a novel method, to be used in conjunction with standard cosmological simulations of hierarchical clustering, that allows one to extract a truly local velocity-space distribution in exquisite detail. Preliminary results suggest a new picture for this distribution which is decidedly non-Maxwellian but instead is characterized by randomly positioned peaks in velocity space. We discuss the implications of these results for experiments to detect axions and weakly interacting massive particles.
Stiff
David
D
Department of Physics, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada K7L 3N6.
Widrow
Lawrence M
LM