Floating Dark Matter in Celestial Bodies

Abstract

Dark matter (DM) can be captured in celestial bodies after scattering and losing sufficient energy to become gravitationally bound. We derive a general framework that describes the current DM distribution inside celestial objects, which self-consistently includes the effects of concentration diffusion, thermal diffusion, gravity, and capture accumulation. For DM with sufficient interactions, we show that a significant DM population can thermalize and sit towards the celestial-body surface. This floating distribution allows for new phenomenology for DM searches in a wide range of celestial bodies, including the Sun, Earth, Jupiter, Brown Dwarfs, and Exoplanets.