Search

Superradiant clouds of ultralight bosons can leave an imprint on the gravitational waveform of black hole binaries through "ionization" and "resonances." We study the sequence of resonances as the binary evolves, and show that there are only two possible outcomes, each with a distinct imprint on the waveform. If the cloud and the binary are nearly counter-rotating, then the cloud survives in its original state until it enters the sensitivity band of future gravitational wave detectors, such as LISA. In all other cases, resonances destroy the cloud, while driving the binary to co-rotate with it and its eccentricity close to a fixed point. This opens up the possibility of inferring the existence of a new boson from the statistical analysis of a population of black hole binaries., Comment: 5+1 pages, 4 figures

The formation and growth of black holes can strongly influence the distribution of dark matter around them. I discuss here the different types of dark matter overdensities around black holes, including dark matter cusps, spikes, mounds, crests, and gravitational atoms. I then review recent results on the evolution of a black holes binary in presence of dark matter, focusing on the energy transfer between binary and dark matter induced by dynamical friction. Finally, I present the prospects for studying dark matter with gravitational wave observations, and argue that future interferometers might be able to detect and characterise dark matter overdensities around black holes., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Review article, to appear in the proceedings of the 182nd Nobel Symposium

Dark matter overdensities around black holes can be searched for by looking at the characteristic imprint they leave on the gravitational waveform of binary black hole mergers. Current theoretical predictions of the density profile of dark matter overdensities are based on highly idealised formation scenarios, in which black holes are assumed to grow adiabatically from an infinitesimal seed to their final mass, compressing dark matter cusps at the center of galactic halos into very dense `spikes'. These scenarios were suitable for dark matter indirect detection studies, since annihilating dark matter cannot reach very high densities, but they fail to capture the dark matter distribution in the innermost regions where the gravitational wave signal is produced. We present here a more realistic formation scenario where black holes form from the collapse of supermassive stars, and follow the evolution of the dark matter density as the supermassive star grows and collapses to a black hole. We show that in this case dark matter forms shallower `mounds', instead of `spikes', on scales comparable with the size of the supermassive stars originating them. We discuss the implications for the detectability of these systems., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

A sub-solar mass primordial black hole (PBH) passing through a neutron star, can lose enough energy through interactions with the dense stellar medium to become gravitationally bound to the star. Once captured, the PBH would sink to the core of the neutron star, and completely consume it from the inside. In this paper, we improve previous energy-loss calculations by considering a realistic solution for the neutron star interior, and refine the treatment of the interaction dynamics and collapse likelihood. We then consider the effect of a sub-solar PBH population on neutron stars near the Galactic center. We find that it is not possible to explain the lack of observed pulsars near the galactic center through dynamical capture of PBHs, as the velocity dispersion is too high. We then show that future observations of old neutron stars close to Sgr A* could set stringent constraints on the PBHs abundance. These cannot however be extended in the currently unconstrained asteroid-mass range, since PBHs of smaller mass would lose less energy in their interaction with the neutron star and end up in orbits that are too loosely bound and likely to be disrupted by other stars in the Galactic center., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

Rotating black holes can produce superradiant clouds of ultralight bosons. When the black hole is part of a binary system, its cloud can undergo resonances and ionization. These processes leave a distinct signature on the gravitational waveform that depends on the cloud's properties. To determine the state of the cloud by the time the system enters the band of future millihertz detectors, we study the chronological sequence of resonances encountered during the inspiral. For the first time, we consistently take into account the nonlinearities induced by the orbital backreaction and we allow the orbit to have generic eccentricity and inclination. We find that the resonance phenomenology exhibits striking new features. Resonances can "start" or "break" above critical thresholds of the parameters, which we compute analytically, and induce dramatic changes in eccentricity and inclination. Applying these results to realistic systems, we find two possible outcomes. If the binary and the cloud are sufficiently close to counter-rotating, the cloud survives in its original state until the system enters in band; otherwise, the cloud is destroyed during a resonance at large separations, but leaves an imprint on the eccentricity and inclination. In both scenarios, we characterize the observational signatures, with particular focus on future gravitational wave detectors., Comment: 37+9 pages, 16 figures

Future gravitational wave observatories can probe dark matter by detecting the dephasing in the waveform of binary black hole mergers induced by dark matter overdensities. Such a detection hinges on the accurate modelling of the dynamical friction, induced by dark matter on the secondary compact object in intermediate and extreme mass ratio inspirals. In this paper, we introduce NbodyIMRI, a new publicly available code designed for simulating binary systems within cold dark matter `spikes'. Leveraging higher particle counts and finer timesteps, we validate the applicability of the standard dynamical friction formalism and provide an accurate determination of the maximum impact parameter of particles which can effectively scatter with a compact object, across various mass ratios. We also show that in addition to feedback due to dynamical friction, the dark matter also evolves through a `stirring' effect driven by the time-dependent potential of the binary. We introduce a simple semi-analytical scheme to account for this effect and demonstrate that including stirring tends to slow the rate of dark matter depletion and therefore enhances the impact of dark matter on the dynamics of the binary., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures + appendices. Companion paper to "Sharpening the dark matter signature in gravitational waveforms I: Accretion and eccentricity evolution" (arXiv:2402.13053). NbodyIMRI code available here: https://github.com/bradkav/NbodyIMRI

Dark matter overdensities around black holes can alter the dynamical evolution of a companion object orbiting around it, and cause a dephasing of the gravitational waveform. Here, we present a refined calculation of the co-evolution of the binary and the dark matter distribution, taking into account the accretion of dark matter particles on the companion black hole, and generalizing previous quasi-circular calculations to the general case of eccentric orbits. These calculations are validated by dedicated N-body simulations. We show that accretion can lead to a large dephasing, and therefore cannot be neglected in general. We also demonstrate that dark matter spikes tend to circularize eccentric orbits faster than previously thought., Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures + appendices. Companion paper to "Sharpening the dark matter signature in gravitational waveforms II: Numerical simulations with the NbodyIMRI code" (arXiv:2402.13762). v2: Added references

Due to superradiant instabilities, clouds of ultralight bosons can spontaneously grow around rotating black holes, creating so-called "gravitational atoms". In this work, we study their dynamical effects on binary systems. We first focus on open orbits, showing that the presence of a cloud can increase the cross section for the dynamical capture of a compact object by more than an order of magnitude. We then consider closed orbits and demonstrate that the backreaction of the cloud's ionization on the orbital motion should be identified as dynamical friction. Finally, we study for the first time eccentric and inclined orbits. We find that, while ionization quickly circularizes the binary, it barely affects the inclination angle. These results enable a more realistic description of the dynamics of gravitational atoms in binaries and pave the way for dedicated searches with future gravitational wave detectors., Comment: 36 pages, 13 figures

The next generation of space-based experiments will go hunting for answers to cosmology's key open questions which revolve around inflation, dark matter and dark energy. Low earth orbit and lunar missions within the European Space Agency's Human and Robotic Exploration programme can push our knowledge forward in all of these three fields. A radio interferometer on the Moon, a cold atom interferometer in low earth orbit and a gravitational wave interferometer on the Moon are highlighted as the most fruitful missions to plan and execute in the mid-term., Comment: 5 pages, invited review as part of the European Space Agency SciSpacE science community white paper series, published in npj Microgravity

Future gravitational wave interferometers such as LISA, Taiji, DECIGO, and TianQin, will enable precision studies of the environment surrounding black holes. In this paper, we study intermediate and extreme mass ratio binary black hole inspirals, and consider three possible environments surrounding the primary black hole: accretion disks, dark matter spikes, and clouds of ultra-light scalar fields, also known as gravitational atoms. We present a Bayesian analysis of the detectability and measurability of these three environments. Focusing for concreteness on the case of a detection with LISA, we show that the characteristic imprint they leave on the gravitational waveform would allow us to identify the environment that generated the signal, and to accurately reconstruct its model parameters., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables plus appendices

Future ground-based gravitational wave observatories will be ideal probes of the environments surrounding black holes with masses $1 - 10\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$. Binary black hole mergers with mass ratios of order $q=m_2/m_1\lesssim10^{-3}$ can remain in the frequency band of such detectors for months or years, enabling precision searches for modifications of their gravitational waveforms with respect to vacuum inspirals. As a concrete example of an environmental effect, we consider here a population of binary primordial black holes which are expected to be embedded in dense cold dark matter spikes. We provide a viable formation scenario for these systems compatible with all observational constraints, and predict upper and lower limits on the merger rates of small mass ratio pairs. Given a detected signal of one such system by either Einstein Telescope or Cosmic Explorer, we show that the properties of the binary and of the dark matter spike can be measured to excellent precision with one week's worth of data, if the effect of the dark matter spike on the waveform is taken into account. However, we show that there is a risk of biased parameter inference or missing the events entirely if the effect of the predicted dark matter overdensity around these objects is not properly accounted for., Comment: 14 pages plus appendices, 15 figures

Gravitational waves (GWs) are an exciting new probe of physics beyond the standard models of gravity and particle physics. One interesting possibility is provided by the so-called "gravitational atom," wherein a superradiant instability spontaneously forms a cloud of ultralight bosons around a rotating black hole. The presence of these boson clouds affects the dynamics of black hole binary inspirals and their associated GW signals. In this Letter, we show that the binary companion can induce transitions between bound and unbound states of the cloud, effectively "ionizing" it, analogous to the photoelectric effect in atomic physics. The orbital energy lost in this process can overwhelm the losses due to GW emission, so that ionization drives the inspiral rather than merely perturbing it. We show that the ionization power contains sharp features that lead to distinctive "kinks" in the evolution of the emitted GW frequency. These discontinuities are a unique signature of the boson cloud and observing them would not only constitute a detection of the ultralight boson itself, but also provide direct information about its mass and the state of the cloud., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) has the potential to reveal wonders about the fundamental theory of nature at play in the extreme gravity regime, where the gravitational interaction is both strong and dynamical. In this white paper, the Fundamental Physics Working Group of the LISA Consortium summarizes the current topics in fundamental physics where LISA observations of GWs can be expected to provide key input. We provide the briefest of reviews to then delineate avenues for future research directions and to discuss connections between this working group, other working groups and the consortium work package teams. These connections must be developed for LISA to live up to its science potential in these areas., Comment: Accepted in: Living Reviews in Relativity

Superradiant instabilities may create clouds of ultralight bosons around rotating black holes, forming so-called "gravitational atoms." It was recently shown that the presence of a binary companion can induce resonant transitions between bound states of these clouds, whose backreaction on the binary's orbit leads to characteristic signatures in the emitted gravitational waves. In this work, we show that the interaction with the companion can also trigger transitions from bound to unbound states of the cloud -- a process that we refer to as "ionization" in analogy with the photoelectric effect in atomic physics. The orbital energy lost in the process overwhelms the losses due to gravitational wave emission and contains sharp features carrying information about the energy spectrum of the cloud. Moreover, we also show that if the companion is a black hole, then the part of the cloud impinging on the event horizon will be absorbed. This "accretion" leads to a significant increase of the companion's mass, which alters the dynamical evolution and ensuing waveform of the binary. We argue that a combined treatment of resonances, ionization, and accretion is crucial to discover and characterize gravitational atoms with upcoming gravitational wave detectors., Comment: 34+21 pages, 16 figures

Large dark matter overdensities can form around black holes of astrophysical and primordial origin as they form and grow. This "dark dress" inevitably affects the dynamical evolution of binary systems, and induces a dephasing in the gravitational waveform that can be probed with future interferometers. In this paper, we introduce a new analytical model to rapidly compute gravitational waveforms in presence of an evolving dark matter distribution. We then present a Bayesian analysis determining when dressed black hole binaries can be distinguished from GR-in-vacuum ones and how well their parameters can be measured, along with how close they must be to be detectable by the planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We show that LISA can definitively distinguish dark dresses from standard binaries and characterize the dark matter environments around astrophysical and primordial black holes for a wide range of model parameters. Our approach can be generalized to assess the prospects for detecting, classifying, and characterizing other environmental effects in gravitational wave physics., Comment: 16 pages + 3 appendices, 8 figures. Code available online at https://github.com/adam-coogan/pydd . v2: Matches version published in PRD

The science objectives of the LISA mission have been defined under the implicit assumption of a 4 yr continuous data stream. Based on the performance of LISA Pathfinder, it is now expected that LISA will have a duty cycle of $\approx 0.75$, which would reduce the effective span of usable data to 3 yr. This paper reports the results of a study by the LISA Science Group, which was charged with assessing the additional science return of increasing the mission lifetime. We explore various observational scenarios to assess the impact of mission duration on the main science objectives of the mission. We find that the science investigations most affected by mission duration concern the search for seed black holes at cosmic dawn, as well as the study of stellar-origin black holes and of their formation channels via multi-band and multi-messenger observations. We conclude that an extension to 6 yr of mission operations is recommended., Comment: 50 pages, 19 figures, 5 tables. Matches version published in GERG

Isolated black holes in our Galaxy have eluded detection so far. We present here a comprehensive study on the detectability of isolated stellar-mass astrophysical black holes that accrete interstellar gas from molecular clouds in both the local region and the Central Molecular Zone. We adopt a state-of-the-art model for the accretion physics backed up by numerical simulations, and study the number of observable sources in both the radio and X-ray band, as a function of a variety of parameters. We discuss in particular the impact of the astrophysical uncertainties on our prediction for the number of bright X-ray sources in the central region of the Galaxy. We finally consider future developments in the radio domain, and assess the potential of SKA to detect a population of astrophysical black holes accreting gas in our Galaxy.

A statistical analysis of the observed perturbations in the density of stellar streams can in principle set stringent contraints on the mass function of dark matter subhaloes, which in turn can be used to constrain the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the likelihood of a stellar density with respect to the stream and subhaloes parameters involves solving an intractable inverse problem which rests on the integration of all possible forward realisations implicitly defined by the simulation model. In order to infer the subhalo abundance, previous analyses have relied on Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) together with domain-motivated but handcrafted summary statistics. Here, we introduce a likelihood-free Bayesian inference pipeline based on Amortised Approximate Likelihood Ratios (AALR), which automatically learns a mapping between the data and the simulator parameters and obviates the need to handcraft a possibly insufficient summary statistic. We apply the method to the simplified case where stellar streams are only perturbed by dark matter subhaloes, thus neglecting baryonic substructures, and describe several diagnostics that demonstrate the effectiveness of the new method and the statistical quality of the learned estimator.

A dark matter overdensity around a black hole may significantly alter the dynamics of the black hole's merger with another compact object. We consider here intermediate mass-ratio inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects with intermediate-mass black holes "dressed" with dark matter. We first demonstrate that previous estimates based on a fixed dark-matter dress are unphysical for a range of binaries and dark-matter distributions by showing that the total energy dissipated by the compact object through dynamical friction, as it inspirals through the dense dark matter environment towards the black hole, is larger than the gravitational binding energy of the dark-matter dress itself. We then introduce a new formalism that allows us to self-consistently follow the evolution of the dark-matter dress due to its gravitational interaction with the binary. We show that the dephasing of the gravitational waveform induced by dark matter is smaller than previously thought, but is still potentially detectable with the LISA space interferometer. The gravitational waves from such binaries could provide powerful diagnostics of the particle nature of dark matter., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures + appendices. Code available at https://github.com/bradkav/HaloFeedback (archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3688812 ), animations available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11663676 . v2: Minor updates to match version published in PRD

Tidal streams are highly sensitive to perturbations from passing dark matter (DM) subhalos and thus provide a means of measuring their abundance. In a recent paper, we analyzed the distribution of stars along the GD-1 stream with a combination of data from the Gaia satellite and the Pan-STARRS survey, and we demonstrated that the population of DM subhalos predicted by the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm are necessary and sufficient to explain the perturbations observed in the linear density of stars. In this paper, we use the measurements of the subhalo mass function (SHMF) from the GD-1 data combined with a similar analysis of the Pal 5 stream to provide novel constraints on alternative DM scenarios that predict a suppression of the SHMF on scales smaller than the mass of dwarf galaxies, marginalizing over uncertainties in the slope and normalization of the unsuppressed SHMF and the susceptibility of DM subhalos in the inner Milky Way to tidal disruption. In particular, we derive a 95% lower limit on the mass of warm dark matter (WDM) thermal relics $m_{\rm WDM}>3.6\,\mathrm{keV}$ from streams alone that strengthens to $m_{\rm WDM}>6.2\,\mathrm{keV}$ when adding dwarf satellite counts. Similarly, we constrain the axion mass in ultra-light ("fuzzy") dark matter (FDM) models to be $m_{\rm FDM}>1.4\times10^{-21}\,\mathrm{eV}$ from streams alone or $m_{\rm FDM}>2.2\times10^{-21}\,\mathrm{eV}$ when adding dwarf satellite counts. Because we make use of simple approximate forms of the streams' SHMF measurement, our analysis is easy to replicate with other alternative DM models that lead to a suppression of the SHMF., Comment: JCAP, in press. Code available to fully replicate the analysis at https://github.com/jobovy/dark-matter-constraints-from-stellar-streams

New data from the $\textit{Gaia}$ satellite, when combined with accurate photometry from the Pan-STARRS survey, allow us to accurately estimate the properties of the GD-1 stream. Here, we analyze the stellar density perturbations in the GD-1 stream and show that they cannot be due to known baryonic structures like giant molecular clouds, globular clusters, or the Milky Way's bar or spiral arms. A joint analysis of the GD-1 and Pal 5 streams instead requires a population of dark substructures with masses $\approx 10^{7}$ to $10^9 \ M_{\rm{\odot}}$. We infer a total abundance of dark subhalos normalised to standard cold dark matter $n_{\rm sub}/n_{\rm sub, CDM} = 0.4 ^{+0.3}_{-0.2}$ ($68 \%$), which corresponds to a mass fraction contained in the subhalos $f_{\rm{sub}} = 0.14 ^{+0.11}_{-0.07} \%$, compatible with the predictions of hydrodynamical simulation of cold dark matter with baryons., Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures. Also see companion paper : "Novel constraints on the particle nature of dark matter from stellar streams". Accepted in MNRAS. Modified main text slightly. Updated Appendix B and added a plot. Main results and conclusions remain unchanged

In this white paper, we discuss the prospects for characterizing and identifying dark matter using gravitational waves, covering a wide range of dark matter candidate types and signals. We argue that present and upcoming gravitational wave probes offer unprecedented opportunities for unraveling the nature of dark matter and we identify the most urgent challenges and open problems with the aim of encouraging a strong community effort at the interface between these two exciting fields of research., Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures. Comments welcome. v2: Added references and minor corrections

Observational constraints on gamma rays produced by the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles around primordial black holes (PBHs) imply that these two classes of Dark Matter candidates cannot coexist. We show here that the successful detection of one or more PBHs by radio searches (with the Square Kilometer Array) and gravitational waves searches (with LIGO/Virgo and the upcoming Einstein Telescope) would set extraordinarily stringent constraints on virtually all weak-scale extensions of the Standard Model with stable relics, including those predicting a WIMP abundance much smaller than that of Dark Matter. Upcoming PBHs searches have in particular the potential to rule out almost the entire parameter space of popular theories such as the minimal supersymmetric standard model and scalar singlet Dark Matter., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Code available at https://github.com/adam-coogan/pbhs_vs_wimps , archived at https://zenodo.org/badge/latestdoi/169754838 . v2: Matches version published in PRD

If primordial black holes of $\mathcal{O}(1-100) M_{\odot}$ constitute a significant portion of the dark matter in the Universe, they should be very abundant in our Galaxy. We present here a detailed analysis of the radio and X-ray emission that these objects are expected to produce due to the accretion of gas from the interstellar medium. With respect to previous studies, we relax the assumption of a monochromatic mass function, and introduce an improved treatment of the physics of gas accretion onto isolated, moving compact objects, based on a set of state-of-the-art numerical simulations. By comparing our predictions with known radio and X-ray sources in the Galactic center region, we show that the maximum relic density of primordial black holes in the mass range of interest is $\sim 10^{-3}$ smaller than that of dark matter. The new upper bound is two orders of magnitude stronger with respect to previous results, based on a conservative phenomenological treatment of the accretion physics. We also provide a comprehensive critical discussion on the reliability of this bound, and on possible future developments in the field. We argue in particular that future multi-wavelength searches will soon start to probe the galactic population of astrophysical black holes., Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, final version accepted for publication in JCAP

There is a growing sense of `crisis' in the dark matter community, due to the absence of evidence for the most popular candidates such as weakly interacting massive particles, axions, and sterile neutrinos, despite the enormous effort that has gone into searching for these particles. Here, we discuss what we have learned about the nature of dark matter from past experiments, and the implications for planned dark matter searches in the next decade. We argue that diversifying the experimental effort, incorporating astronomical surveys and gravitational wave observations, is our best hope to make progress on the dark matter problem., Comment: Published in Nature, online on 04 Oct 2018. 13 pages, 1 figure

The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics---dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem---all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress., Comment: White Paper for the COST action "Gravitational Waves, Black Holes, and Fundamental Physics", 272 pages, 12 figures; v4: updated references and author list. Overall improvements and corrections. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity

The formation of astrophysical and primordial black holes influences the distribution of dark matter surrounding them. Black holes are thus expected to carry a dark matter `dress' whose properties depend on their formation mechanism and on the properties of the environment. Here we carry out a numerical and analytical study of the merger of dressed black holes, and show that the distribution of dark matter around them dramatically affects the dynamical evolution of the binaries. Although the final impact on the merger rate of primordial black holes is rather small with respect to the case of `naked' black holes, we argue that our analysis places the calculation of this rate on more solid ground, with LIGO-Virgo observations ruling out a dark matter fraction of $10^{-3}$ for primordial black holes of 100 solar masses, and it paves the way to more detailed analyses of environmental effects induced by dark matter on the gravitational wave emission of binary black holes., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures. Code associated with the paper is available at https://github.com/bradkav/BlackHolesDarkDress . Movies can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6298397 . v2: Matches version published in PRD as "Merger rate of a subdominant population of primordial black holes". v3: Corrected typos and added references

A key prediction of the standard cosmological model -- which relies on the assumption that dark matter is cold, i.e. non-relativistic at the epoch of structure formation -- is the existence of a large number of dark matter substructures on sub-galactic scales. This assumption can be tested by studying the perturbations induced by dark matter substructures on cold stellar streams. Here, we study the prospects for discriminating cold from warm dark matter by generating mock data for upcoming astronomical surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and reconstructing the properties of the dark matter particle from the perturbations induced on the stellar density profile of a stream. We discuss the statistical and systematic uncertainties, and show that the method should allow to set stringent constraints on the mass of thermal dark matter relics, and possibly to yield an actual measurement of the dark matter particle mass if it is in the $\mathcal{O}(1)$ keV range., Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, JCAP accepted version

One of the most promising strategies to identify the nature of dark matter consists in the search for new particles at accelerators and with so-called direct detection experiments. Working within the framework of simplified models, and making use of machine learning tools to speed up statistical inference, we address the question of what we can learn about dark matter from a detection at the LHC and a forthcoming direct detection experiment. We show that with a combination of accelerator and direct detection data, it is possible to identify newly discovered particles as dark matter, by reconstructing their relic density assuming they are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) thermally produced in the early Universe, and demonstrating that it is consistent with the measured dark matter abundance. An inconsistency between these two quantities would instead point either towards additional physics in the dark sector, or towards a non-standard cosmology, with a thermal history substantially different from that of the standard cosmological model., Comment: 24 pages (+21 pages of appendices and references) and 14 figures. v2: Updated to match JCAP version; includes minor clarifications in text and updated references

We derive the local dark matter density by applying the integrated Jeans equation method from Silverwood et al. (2016) to SDSS-SEGUE G-dwarf data processed and presented by B\"udenbender et al. (2015). We use the MultiNest Bayesian nested sampling software to fit a model for the baryon distribution, dark matter and tracer stars, including a model for the 'tilt term' that couples the vertical and radial motions, to the data. The $\alpha$-young population from B\"udenbender et al. (2015) yields the most reliable result of $\rho_{\rm DM} = 0.46^{+0.07}_{-0.09}\, {{\rm GeV\, cm}^{-3}} = 0.012^{+0.001}_{-0.002}\, {{\rm M}_\odot \, {\rm pc}^{-3}}$. Our analyses yield inconsistent results for the $\alpha$-young and $\alpha$-old data, pointing to problems in the tilt term and its modelling, the data itself, the assumption of a flat rotation curve, or the effects of disequilibria., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS

In recent years, realistic hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way have become available, enabling a reliable estimate of the dark matter density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighborhood. We review here the status of hydrodynamical simulations and their implications for the interpretation of direct dark matter searches. We focus in particular on: the criteria to identify Milky Way-like galaxies; the impact of baryonic physics on the dark matter velocity distribution; the possible presence of substructures like clumps, streams, or dark disks; and on the implications for the direct detection of dark matter with standard and non-standard interactions., Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; v2: added Sec. 6.2 and Fig. 3, version accepted for publication in IJMPA

The history of the dark matter problem can be traced back to at least the 1930s, but it was not until the early 1970s that the issue of 'missing matter' was widely recognized as problematic. In the latter period, previously separate issues involving missing mass were brought together in a single anomaly. We argue that reference to a straightforward 'accumulation of evidence' alone is inadequate to comprehend this episode. Rather, the rise of cosmological research, the accompanying renewed interest in the theory of relativity and changes in the manpower division of astronomy in the 1960s are key to understanding how dark matter came to matter. At the same time, this story may also enlighten us on the methodological dimensions of past practices of physics and cosmology., Comment: Accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy. Corrected typo

It was recently proposed that the effects usually attributed to particle dark matter on galaxy scales are due to the displacement of dark energy by baryonic matter, a paradigm known as emergent gravity. This formalism leads to predictions similar to Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) in spherical symmetry, but not quite identical. In particular, it leads to a well defined transition between the Newtonian and the modified gravitational regimes, a transition depending on both the Newtonian acceleration and its first derivative with respect to radius. Under the hypothesis of the applicability of this transition to aspherical systems, we investigate whether it can reproduce observed galaxy rotation curves. We conclude that the formula leads to marginally acceptable fits with strikingly low best-fit distances, low stellar mass-to-light ratios, and a low Hubble constant. In particular, some unobserved wiggles are produced in rotation curves because of the dependence of the transition on the derivative of the Newtonian acceleration, leading, even in the most favorable case, to systematically less good fits than MOND. Then, applying the predicted transition from emergent gravity in a regime where it should a priori be applicable, i.e. in spherical symmetry and outside of the bulk of matter, we show that the predictions for the secular advances of Solar System planets' perihelia are discrepant with the data by seven orders of magnitude, ruling out the present emergent gravity weak-field formula with high confidence., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

We model the accretion of gas onto a population of massive primordial black holes in the Milky Way, and compare the predicted radio and X-ray emission with observational data. We show that under conservative assumptions on the accretion process, the possibility that ${\cal O}(10) \, M_\odot$ primordial black holes can account for all of the dark matter in the Milky Way is excluded at $5\sigma$ by a comparison with a VLA radio catalog at $1.4$ GHz, and at $\simeq 40\sigma$ by a comparison with a Chandra X-ray catalog ($0.5 - 8$ keV). We argue that this method can be used to identify such a population of primordial black holes with more sensitive future radio and X-ray surveys., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

The interpretation of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data in the framework of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) theories is hampered by the need to run computationally expensive event generators and detector simulators. Performing statistically convergent scans of high-dimensional BSM theories is consequently challenging, and in practice unfeasible for very high-dimensional BSM theories. We present here a new machine learning method that accelerates the interpretation of LHC data, by learning the relationship between BSM theory parameters and data. As a proof-of-concept, we demonstrate that this technique accurately predicts natural SUSY signal events in two signal regions at the High Luminosity LHC, up to four orders of magnitude faster than standard techniques. The new approach makes it possible to rapidly and accurately reconstruct the theory parameters of complex BSM theories, should an excess in the data be discovered at the LHC., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Although dark matter is a central element of modern cosmology, the history of how it became accepted as part of the dominant paradigm is often ignored or condensed into a brief anecdotical account focused around the work of a few pioneering scientists. The aim of this review is to provide the reader with a broader historical perspective on the observational discoveries and the theoretical arguments that led the scientific community to adopt dark matter as an essential part of the standard cosmological model., Comment: 86 pages, 8 figures

We present global fits of an effective field theory description of real, and complex scalar dark matter candidates. We simultaneously take into account all possible dimension 6 operators consisting of dark matter bilinears and gauge invariant combinations of quark and gluon fields. We derive constraints on the free model parameters for both the real (five parameters) and complex (seven) scalar dark matter models obtained by combining Planck data on the cosmic microwave background, direct detection limits from LUX, and indirect detection limits from the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We find that for real scalars indirect dark matter searches disfavour a dark matter particle mass below 100 GeV. For the complex scalar dark matter particle current data have a limited impact due to the presence of operators that lead to p-wave annihilation, and also do not contribute to the spin-independent scattering cross- section. Although current data are not informative enough to strongly constrain the theory parameter space, we demonstrate the power of our formalism to reconstruct the theoretical parameters compatible with an actual dark matter detection, by assuming that the excess of gamma rays observed by the Fermi Large Area Telescope towards the Galactic centre is entirely due to dark matter annihilations. Please note that the excess can very well be due to astrophysical sources such as millisecond pulsars. We find that scalar dark matter interacting via effective field theory operators can in principle explain the Galactic centre excess, but that such interpretation is in strong tension with the non-detection of gamma rays from dwarf galaxies in the real scalar case. In the complex scalar case there is enough freedom to relieve the tension., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures

If dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), dark matter subhalos in the Milky Way could be detectable as gamma-ray point sources due to WIMP annihilation. In this work, we perform an updated study of the detectability of dark matter subhalos as gamma-ray sources with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi LAT). We use the results of the Via Lactea II simulation, scaled to the Planck 2015 cosmological parameters, to predict the local dark matter subhalo distribution. Under optimistic assumptions for the WIMP parameters --- a 40 GeV particle annihilating to $b\bar{b}$ with a thermal cross-section, as required to explain the Galactic center GeV excess --- we predict that at most $\sim 10$ subhalos might be present in the third Fermi LAT source catalog (3FGL). This is a smaller number than has been predicted by prior studies, and we discuss the origin of this difference. We also compare our predictions for the detectability of subhalos with the number of subhalo candidate sources in 3FGL, and derive upper limits on the WIMP annihilation cross-section as a function of the particle mass. If a dark matter interpretation could be excluded for all 3FGL sources, our constraints would be competitive with those found by indirect searches using other targets, such as known Milky Way satellite galaxies., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

We study the implications of galaxy formation on dark matter direct detection using high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies simulated within the EAGLE and APOSTLE projects. We identify Milky Way analogues that satisfy observational constraints on the Milky Way rotation curve and total stellar mass. We then extract the dark matter density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood for this set of Milky Way analogues, and use them to analyse the results of current direct detection experiments. For most Milky Way analogues, the event rates in direct detection experiments obtained from the best fit Maxwellian distribution (with peak speed of 223 - 289 km/s) are similar to those obtained directly from the simulations. As a consequence, the allowed regions and exclusion limits set by direct detection experiments in the dark matter mass and spin-independent cross section plane shift by a few GeV compared to the Standard Halo Model, at low dark matter masses. For each dark matter mass, the halo-to-halo variation of the local dark matter density results in an overall shift of the allowed regions and exclusion limits for the cross section. However, the compatibility of the possible hints for a dark matter signal from DAMA and CDMS-Si and null results from LUX and SuperCDMS is not improved., Comment: 43 pages, 14 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in JCAP

We obtain predictions for the properties of cold dark matter annihilation radiation using high resolution hydrodynamic zoom-in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies (APOSTLE project) carried out as part of the "Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments" (EAGLE) programme. Galactic halos in the simulation have significantly different properties from those assumed in the "standard halo model" often used in dark matter detection studies. The formation of the galaxy causes a contraction of the dark matter halo, whose density profile develops a steeper slope than the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile between $r\approx1.5$ kpc and $r\approx10$ kpc. At smaller radii, $r\lesssim1.5$ kpc, the halos develop a flatter than NFW slope. This unexpected feature may be specific to our particular choice of subgrid physics model but nevertheless the dark matter density profiles agree within 30% as the mass resolution is increased by a factor 150. The inner regions of the halos are almost perfectly spherical (axis ratios $b/a > 0.97$ within $r=1$ kpc) and there is no offset larger than 45 pc between the centre of the stellar distribution and the centre of the dark halo. The morphology of the predicted dark matter annihilation radiation signal is in broad agreement with $\gamma$-ray observations at large Galactic latitudes ($b\gtrsim3^\circ$). At smaller angles, the inferred signal in one of our four galaxies is similar to that which is observed but it is significantly weaker in the other three., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, corrected typos

We present a new method for determining the local dark matter density using kinematic data for a population of tracer stars. The Jeans equation in the $z$-direction is integrated to yield an equation that gives the velocity dispersion as a function of the total mass density, tracer density, and the tilt term that describes the coupling of vertical and radial motions. We then fit a dark matter mass profile to tracer density and velocity dispersion data to derive credible regions on the vertical dark matter density profile. Our method avoids numerical differentiation, leading to lower numerical noise, and is able to deal with the tilt term while remaining one dimensional. In this study we present the method and perform initial tests on idealised mock data. We also demonstrate the importance of dealing with the tilt term for tracers that sample $\gtrsim 1$ kpc above the disc plane. If ignored, this results in a systematic underestimation of the dark matter density., Comment: V2: Improved tracer density description; increased number of mocks to explore outliers; corrected sign error in the (R, z) velocity dispersion; main conclusions unchanged. 19 pages, 14 figures

We present a new global fit of the 19-dimensional phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (pMSSM-19) that comply with all the latest experimental results from dark matter indirect, direct and accelerator dark matter searches. We show that the model provides a satisfactory explanation of the excess of gamma-rays from the Galactic centre observed by the Fermi~Large Area Telescope, assuming that it is produced by the annihilation of neutralinos in the Milky Way halo. We identify two regions that pass all the constraints: the first corresponds to neutralinos with a mass ~80-100 GeV annihilating into WW with a branching ratio of 95% ; the second to heavier neutralinos, with mass ~180-200 GeV annihilating into t tbar with a branching ratio of 87%. We show that neutralinos compatible with the Galactic centre GeV excess will soon be within the reach of LHC run-II -- notably through searches for charginos and neutralinos, squarks and light smuons -- and of Xenon1T, thanks to its unprecedented sensitivity to spin-dependent cross-section off neutrons., Comment: Minor changes following referee reports. Main conclusions unchanged. Matches version published in JCAP

Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) is an empirical theory originally proposed to explain the rotation curves of spiral galaxies by modifying the gravitational acceleration, rather than by invoking dark matter. Here,we set constraints on MOND using an up-to-date compilation of kinematic tracers of the Milky Way and a comprehensive collection of morphologies of the baryonic component in the Galaxy. In particular, we find that the so-called "standard" interpolating function cannot explain at the same time the rotation curve of the Milky Way and that of external galaxies for any of the baryonic models studied, while the so-called "simple" interpolating function can for a subset of models. Upcoming astronomical observations will refine our knowledge on the morphology of baryons and will ultimately confirm or rule out the validity of MOND in the Milky Way. We also present constraints on MOND-like theories without making any assumptions on the interpolating function., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

An accurate knowledge of the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way is of crucial importance for galaxy formation studies and current searches for particle dark matter. In this paper we set new dynamical constraints on the Galactic dark matter profile by comparing the observed rotation curve, updated with a comprehensive compilation of kinematic tracers, with that inferred from a wide range of observation-based morphologies of the bulge, disc and gas. The generalised Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) and Einasto dark matter profiles are fitted to the data in order to determine the favoured ranges of local density, slope and scale radius. For a representative baryonic model, a typical local circular velocity of 230 km/s and a distance of the Sun to the Galactic centre of 8 kpc, we find a local dark matter density of 0.420+0.021-0.018 (2 sigma) +- 0.025 GeV/cm^3 (0.420+0.019-0.021 (2 sigma) +- 0.026 GeV/cm^3) for NFW (Einasto), where the second error is an estimate of the systematic due to baryonic modelling. Apart from the Galactic parameters, the main sources of uncertainty inside and outside the solar circle are baryonic modelling and rotation curve measurements, respectively. Upcoming astronomical observations are expected to reduce all these uncertainties substantially over the coming years., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, matches published version

In a brief note posted recently, the authors of arXiv:1503.07813 raised some concerns on our arxiv:1502.03821, recently published in Nature Physics. We thank them for the interest in our work and respond here to their criticisms., Comment: 2 pages

Collider, direct and indirect searches for dark matter have typically little or no sensitivity to weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with masses above a few TeV. This rather unexplored regime can however be probed through the search for distinctive gamma-ray spectral features produced by the annihilation of WIMPs at very high energies. Here we present a dedicated search for gamma-ray boxes -- sharp spectral features that cannot be mimicked by astrophysical sources -- with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Using realistic projections for the instrument performance and detailed background modelling, a profile likelihood analysis is implemented to derive the expected upper limits and sensitivity reach after 100 h of observations towards a $2^\circ\times2^\circ$ region around the Galactic centre. Our results show that CTA will be able to probe gamma-ray boxes down to annihilation cross sections of $10^{-27}-10^{-26}\,\text{cm}^3\text{/s}$ up to tens of TeV. We also identify a number of concrete particle physics models providing thermal dark matter candidates that can be used as target benchmarks in future search campaigns. This constitutes a golden opportunity for CTA to either discover or rule out multi-TeV thermal dark matter in a corner of parameter space where all other experimental efforts are basically insensitive., Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, matches published version and includes erratum

The ubiquitous presence of dark matter in the universe is today a central tenet in modern cosmology and astrophysics. Ranging from the smallest galaxies to the observable universe, the evidence for dark matter is compelling in dwarfs, spiral galaxies, galaxy clusters as well as at cosmological scales. However, it has been historically difficult to pin down the dark matter contribution to the total mass density in the Milky Way, particularly in the innermost regions of the Galaxy and in the solar neighbourhood. Here we present an up-to-date compilation of Milky Way rotation curve measurements, and compare it with state-of-the-art baryonic mass distribution models. We show that current data strongly disfavour baryons as the sole contribution to the galactic mass budget, even inside the solar circle. Our findings demonstrate the existence of dark matter in the inner Galaxy while making no assumptions on its distribution. We anticipate that this result will compel new model-independent constraints on the dark matter local density and profile, thus reducing uncertainties on direct and indirect dark matter searches, and will shed new light on the structure and evolution of the Galaxy., Comment: First submitted version of letter published in Nature Physics on Febuary 9, 2015: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3237.html