THE DISTRIBUTION OF DARK MATTER IN THE MILKY WAY’S DISK

We present an analysis of the effects of dissipational baryonic physics on the local dark matter (DM) distribution at the location of the Sun, with an emphasis on the consequences for direct detection experiments. Our work is based on a comparative analysis of two cosmological simulations with identical initial conditions of a Milky Way halo, one of which (Eris) is a full hydrodynamic simulation and the other (ErisDark) is a DM-only one. We find that in Eris two distinct processes lead to a 30% enhancement of DM in the disk plane at the location of the Sun: the accretion and disruption of satellites resulting in a DM component with net angular momentum, and the contraction of baryons pulling the DM into the disk plane without forcing it to co-rotate. Similar trends are seen regarding the amplitude of the annual modulation, while the modulated fraction is increased compared to the SHM and decreased compared to ErisDark.