Capture by the sun of a galactic population of weakly interacting, massive particles

Abstract

In this paper, hypothetical particles are assumed to make up the missing dynamical mass in the Galaxy, providing a mass density between 0.01 and 0.1 solar mass/cu pc and with a velocity dispersion of about 30 (disk) or 300 (halo) km/s. The number of particles which would be captured by the sun up to its present age by the capture mechanism of scattering off individual nucleons in the sun and into bound orbits is computed. For scattering cross sections not too far from the value of 4 x 10 to the -36th sq cm, which is optimal for suppressing solar neutrinos, it is found that just the right number can be captured. The solutions to the neutrino problem in the sun and the missing mass problem in the Galaxy may thus be one and the same.