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Annika Peter (Ohio State)
Title: The fastest particles in the Solar Neighborhood come from the Large Magellanic Cloud
Abstract:
As the Earth travels through our galaxy, it is bombarded by dark matter from the Milky Way’s halo. A variety of direct detection experiments have been and will be built to detect this most local of dark matter. Because the signal in experiments depends on the local density and kinematics of dark matter in our Solar Neighborhood, there is significant interest in identifying structures within the Milky Way that can shape the signal, and in using an eventual signal in direct detection experiments to reconstruct the assembly history of the Milky Way. Recently, there has been much excitement in considering how the newly discovered debris of massive Milky Way satellites (found in Gaia and other stellar surveys) can affect the detection prospects of dark matter in experiment. In this talk, I focus on the most massive merger event of the Milky Way’s lifetime: the Magellanic Clouds. I show how the unique geometry of the Clouds’ orbit leaves a distinct imprint on the dark matter kinematics in the Solar Neighborhood, and hence, in direct detection experiments. Although no stars directly trace this dark matter component, I will show how the signal we predict is related to recent observations of the Milky Way stellar halo’s response to the passage of the Clouds.