Modeling the affect of dark matter distributions in the Milky Way on the component of the cosmic rays energy spectrum as incident on Earth

Abstract

In this thesis, we investigate the effect of dark matter distribution in the galaxy on the positron spectrum on earth. We wrote code to simulate two district dark matter distribution functions as well as the annihilations which convert them into positrons. We then channeled the results into a galaxy propagation software package GALPROP and obtained a positron spectrum on earth. Our results suggest that while no dramatic differences emerge in the spectrum as a result of varying dark matter distributions, further studies are needed to confidently establish the exact nature of the relationship between the ellipticity of the dark matter profile and the positron spectrum. trajectories for other research designs are made clear as a result of this project.