Daniel Thomson with Glenn Starkman

Dark Matter Capture by Binary Systems

Dark matter is thought to pervade the galaxy, making up over 90% of its total mass. Dark matter particles traveling through multi-body bound gravitational systems, such as binary star systems or planetary systems, can scatter off those bodies and become gravitationally bound. The rate of capture will depend on the relative masses of the star and planets as well as their orbital parameters. By numerically integrating the orbits of dark matter particles through such binary or multi-body systems we will characterize the capture efficiency. This will allow us to better determine the importance of dark matter capture to so-called indirect signals of dark matter, such as dark-matter-dark-matter annihilation.