2007/11/30 by J. D. Vergados, Steen H. Hansen, S. H. Hansen +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.77.023509
published as Phys.Rev.D77:023509,2008 · 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 2007/11/30 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We consider direct dark matter detection rates and investigate the difference between a standard Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution and a ``realistic'' distribution like the ones extracted from numerical N-body simulations. Sizable differences are observed when such results are compared to the standard Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. For a light target both the total rate and the annual modulation are reduced by \ensuremath∼25%. For a heavy target the total rate is virtually unchanged, whereas the annual modulation is modified by up to 50%, depending on the weakly interacting massive particle mass and detector energy threshold. We also consider the effect of a possible velocity anisotropy, and the effect is found to be largest for a light target. For the realistic velocity distribution the anisotropy may reduce the annual modulation, in contrast to the Maxwell-Boltzmann case.