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Galactic Potential and Dark Matter Density from Angular Stellar Accelerations

Buschmann, Malte; Safdi, Benjamin R.; Schutz, Katelin

We present an approach to measure the Milky Way (MW) potential using the angular accelerations of stars in aggregate as measured by astrometric surveys like Gaia. Accelerations directly probe the gradient of the MW potential, as opposed to indirect methods using, e.g., stellar velocities. We show that end-of-mission Gaia stellar acceleration data …