Visible light exposure of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory & math reconstruction of dark matter location. D. Coe & J. Merten/ESO/NASA/ESA/CXC
Theory Seminar

Physics Theory Seminar with Juri Smirnov on Exoplanets

Juri Smirnov (Hosted by Dev) from Ohio State University will be presenting the seminar "Exoplanets as Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detectors"

Smirnov will present his recent proposal to use exoplanets as new targets to discover dark matter (DM). Throughout the Milky Way, DM can scatter, become captured, deposit annihilation energy, and increase the heat flow within exoplanets. They estimate upcoming infrared telescope sensitivity to this scenario, finding actionable discovery or exclusion searches. They find that DM with masses below the GeV scale can be probed with exoplanets, with DM-proton and DM-electron scattering cross sections down to about 10-37 cm2, stronger than existing limits by up to six orders of magnitude. Supporting evidence of a DM origin can be identified through DM-induced exoplanet heating correlated with galactic position, and hence DM density. He will, furthermore, discuss the realistic requirements on the number of observed targets that would allow a DM profile reconstruction of our galaxy. This opportunity provides new motivation to measure the temperature of the billions of brown dwarfs, rogue planets, and gas giants peppered throughout our Galaxy.

Post-docs and students' Q&A with the speaker starts at 2:15 pm.