Mirror matter has been proposed as a dark matter candidate. It has several very attractive features, including automatic stability and darkness, the ability to mimic the broad features of cold dark matter while in the linear density perturbation regime, and consistency with all direct dark matter search experiments, both negative (e.g. CDMS II) and positive (DAMA). In this paper we consider an important unsolved problem: Are there plausible reasons to explain why most of the mirror matter in spiral galaxies exists in the form of gaseous spheroidal galactic halos around ordinary matter disks? We compute an order-of-magnitude estimate that the mirror-photon luminosity of a typical spiral galaxy today is around ${10}^{44}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{s}$. Interestingly, this rate of energy loss is similar to the power supplied by ordinary supernova explosions. We discuss circumstances under which supernova power can be used to heat the gaseous part of the mirror matter halo and hence prevent its collapse to a disk. The macroscopic ordinary-mirror asymmetry plays a fundamental role in our analysis.

• Received 25 July 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.70.123508