Speaker
Description
All dark matter (DM) detection signals and their interpretation, from both direct and indirect searches, depend on our knowledge of the phase-space of DM in the Milky Way (MW). The rotation curve (RC) of the MW, over the entire MW DM halo, gives crucial input in constructing the MW DM phase-space. However, our knowledge of the MW halo RC beyond the disk (i.e approx beyond 20 kpc) has been less than adequate till now (especially when compared to the disk RC). For the first time, we present a high-quality, continuous rotation curve of the Milky Way (MW) spanning from the inner disk region (approx 3 Kpc) to the outer halo region (approx 200+ kpc). This is constructed out of a new, comprehensive, quality-assured, homogenised catalogue of 32 million stellar sources with full 6D phase-space information assembled from cross-matching GAIA DR3 astrometry with spectro-photometric distances and line-of-sight velocities from 18 large-scale surveys (including DESI, SDSS-BOSS, APOGEE, LAMOST, GALAG, GAIA-ESO, etc). The halo MW RC benefits from the new catalogue of roughly half-a-million halo stars, predominantly faint and metal-poor, extending well beyond the Gaia parallax limit (~ 10 kpc around us). The implications of such a high-quality RC spanning the entire MW halo are profound.
