Topic: Mapping the Milky Way’s Dark Matter Distribution with Stellar Stream Dynamics
Abstract: The tidal tails of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters are rich with information about galactic structure. In this talk, I will overview my recent work on mapping the Milky Way’s dark matter distribution using the morphology and kinematics of stellar streams. I will present a fully data-driven measurement of the galactic acceleration field derived from the stream GD-1, and discuss its implications for the geometry of the inner dark matter halo. I will then introduce a new method to model low mass dark matter subhalos and their impact on streams. The result is a constraint on the Milky Way’s dark matter distribution that spans several orders of magnitude in mass-scales, from the stellar halo down to dark matter subhalos.
