Exoplanets as Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detectors
2021; American Physical Society; Volume: 126; Issue: 16 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1103/physrevlett.126.161101
ISSN1092-0145
AutoresRebecca K. Leane, Juri Smirnov,
Tópico(s)Atmospheric Ozone and Climate
ResumoWe present exoplanets as new targets to discover dark matter (DM). Throughout the Milky Way, DM can scatter, become captured, deposit annihilation energy, and increase the heat flow within exoplanets. We estimate upcoming infrared telescope sensitivity to this scenario, finding actionable discovery or exclusion searches. We find that DM with masses above about an MeV can be probed with exoplanets, with DM-proton and DM-electron scattering cross sections down to about 10−37 cm2, stronger than existing limits by up to six orders of magnitude. Supporting evidence of a DM origin can be identified through DM-induced exoplanet heating correlated with galactic position, and hence DM density. This provides new motivation to measure the temperature of the billions of brown dwarfs, rogue planets, and gas giants peppered throughout our Galaxy.Received 8 October 2020Revised 28 November 2020Accepted 15 March 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.161101Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasParticle astrophysicsParticle dark matterParticles & Fields
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