A New Solar System Population of WIMP Dark Matter

Abstract

Perturbations due to the planets combined with the non-Coulomb nature of the gravitational potential in the Sun imply that WIMPs that are gravitationally captured by scattering in surface layers of the Sun can evolve into orbits that no longer intersect the Sun. For orbits with a semi-major axis $<1/2$ of Jupiter's orbit, such WIMPs can persist in the solar system for $>10^9$ years, leading to a previously unanticipated population intersecting Earth's orbit. For WIMPs detectable in the next generation of detectors, this population can provide a complementary signal, in the keV range, to that of galactic halo dark matter.

Comments: revtex, 4 pages including 1 eps figure (published version, including revisions made in response to referees)