Sep 25 – 27, 2019
Jussieu campus of Sorbonne University, Paris, France
Europe/Paris timezone

Detecting Dark Matter in the LISA era: Gravitational Waves from Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals

Sep 27, 2019, 11:35 AM
20m
Amphi Charpak (Jussieu campus of Sorbonne University, Paris, France)

Amphi Charpak

Jussieu campus of Sorbonne University, Paris, France

Jussieu campus, Paris

Speaker

Dr Bradley Kavanagh (GRAPPA, University of Amsterdam)

Description

The observation of Gravitational Waves (GWs) has opened up a whole new avenue for constraining and detecting particle Dark Matter (DM). One of the most promising systems to study is the Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspiral (IMRI): a stellar-mass compact object such as a black hole or neutron star inspiraling towards an intermediate mass black hole, thousands of times more massive than the Sun. Sub-hertz GWs emitted during the inspiral should be detectable by future space-based observatories such as LISA. But the presence of DM in the system can have subtle dynamical effects on the inspiral, altering the waveform and allowing for a detection of DM almost independently of its particle properties. I will discuss ongoing work to study these systems carefully and self-consistently, incorporating the effects of feedback on the DM halo, in order to determine whether such a signal can be detected and what we can learn about Dark Matter if it is.

Primary author

Dr Bradley Kavanagh (GRAPPA, University of Amsterdam)

Presentation materials