Measuring the Local Dark Matter Density

Abstract

We examine systematic problems in determining the local matter density from the vertical motion of stars, i.e. the “Oort limit”. Using collisionless simulations and a Monte Carlo Markov Chain technique, we determine the data quality required to detect local dark matter at its expected density. We find that systematic errors are more important than observational errors and apply our technique to Hipparcos data to reassign realistic error bars to the local dark matter density.