Dark Matter Substructure in the Milky Way: Properties and Detection Prospects – Louie Strigari
Date: Tue. January 26th, 2010, 11:30 am-12:30 pmLocation: Rockefeller 221
Cosmological observations have converged on a standard model of Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (LCDM), in which the Universe is dominated by yet unknown components of dark matter and dark energy. When confronted with observations of our own Milky Way, this theory of LCDM leads to the prediction of a significant population of bound, unseen dark matter substructures, ranging possibly from Earth mass scales up to observed dwarf galaxy mass scales. In this talk, I will discuss the theory of LCDM and substructure in the context of present and forthcoming deep galaxy surveys, and show how these observations may be used to provide detailed predictions for the abundance and mass spectrum of dark substructures. I will discuss prospects for detection of dark substructure by a several methods, including particle dark matter annihilation in gamma-rays and neutrinos, and via gravitational lensing.