Rebecca Leane "[HET seminar] Dark Matter in Stars and Planets"

Thursday Feb 4, 2021, 4:00 PM → 5:00 PM US/Eastern

https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1616949369?pwd=dXJzMnlDS0ZPWDJvM0Zyb2ppbjc0UT09

I will discuss new ways that stars and planets can be used to discover Dark Matter (DM). This includes a new search for sub-GeV DM in exoplanets, where DM scatters, becomes captured, deposits annihilation energy, and increases the heat flow within exoplanets. I will discuss upcoming infrared telescope sensitivity to this scenario, detailing actionable discovery or exclusion searches, which lead to new tests of the DM-proton and DM-electron scattering cross sections. I will also discuss a new type of annihilation signal, which exploits the large Galactic center population of neutron stars and brown dwarfs.