Constraining dark matter sub-structure with the dynamics of astrophysical systems

Understand

The accuracy of the measurements of some astrophysical dynamical systems allows to constrain the existence of incredibly small gravitational perturbations.

• In particular, the internal Solar System dynamics (planets, Earth-Moon) opens up the possibility, for the first time, to prove the abundance, mass and size, of dark sub-structures at the Earth vicinity.
• We find that adopting the standard dark matter density, its local distribution can be composed by sub-solar mass halos with no currently measurable dynamical consequences, regardless of the mini-halo fraction.
• On the other hand, it is possible to exclude the presence of dark streams with linear mass densities higher than $\lambda_{\rm st}> 10^{-10} \Msun/\AU$ (about the Earth mass spread along the diameter of the SS up to the Kuiper belt).