Orbital dynamics of the solar basin
Abstract We study the dynamics of the solar basin — the accumulated population of weakly-interacting particles on bound orbits in the Solar System. We focus on particles starting off on Sun-crossing orbits, corresponding to initial conditions of production inside the Sun, and investigate their evolu...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SpringerOpen
2024-12-01
|
| Series: | Journal of High Energy Physics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2024)007 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Abstract We study the dynamics of the solar basin — the accumulated population of weakly-interacting particles on bound orbits in the Solar System. We focus on particles starting off on Sun-crossing orbits, corresponding to initial conditions of production inside the Sun, and investigate their evolution over the age of the Solar System. A combination of analytic methods, secular perturbation theory, and direct numerical integration of orbits sheds light on the long- and short-term evolution of a population of test particles orbiting the Sun and perturbed by the planets. Our main results are that the effective lifetime of a solar basin at Earth’s location is τ eff = 1.20 ± 0.09 Gyr, and that there is annual (semi-annual) modulation of the basin density with known phase and amplitude at the fractional level of 6.5% (2.2%). These results have important implications for direct detection searches of solar basin particles, and the strong temporal modulation signature yields a robust discovery channel. Our simulations can also be interpreted in the context of gravitational capture of dark matter in the Solar System, with consequences for any dark-matter phenomenon that may occur below the local escape velocity. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1029-8479 |