Limits on the radiative decay of sterile neutrino dark matter from the unresolved cosmic and soft x-ray backgrounds

Abazajian, Kevork N.; Markevitch, M.; Koushiappas, Savvas M.; Hickox, Ryan C.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.75.063511

Cited by 112 publications

(153 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…During the last year a number of works appeared, devoted to search for the decay signal of a DM candidate -sterile neutrino -in the X-ray spectra of astrophysical objects [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Indeed, it was noticed long ago [10] that a right-handed neutrino with its mass in the keV range presents a viable warm dark matter (WDM) candidate.…”

Section: Sterile Neutrino As Wdm Candidatementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Search for the light dark matter with an X-ray spectrometer

Boyarsky

Herder

Neronov³

et al. 2007

Astroparticle Physics

118

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Sterile neutrinos with the mass in the keV range are interesting warm dark matter (WDM) candidates. The restrictions on their parameters (mass and mixing angle) obtained by current Xray missions (XMM-Newton or Chandra) can only be improved by less than an order of magnitude in the near future. Therefore the new strategy of search is needed. We compare the sensitivities of existing and planned X-ray missions for the detection of WDM particles with the mass ∼ 1−20 keV. We show that existing technology allows an improvement in sensitivity by a factor of 100. Namely, two different designs can achieve such an improvement: [A] a spectrometer with the high spectral resolving power of 0.1%, wide (steradian) field of view, with small effective area of about cm 2 (which can be achieved without focusing optics) or [B] the same type of spectrometer with a smaller (degree) field of view but with a much larger effective area of 10 3 cm 2 (achieved with the help of focusing optics). To illustrate the use of the "type A" design we present the bounds on parameters of the sterile neutrino obtained from analysis of the data taken by an X-ray microcalorimeter. In spite of the very short exposure time (100 sec) the derived bound is comparable to the one found from long XMM-Newton observation. I. STERILE NEUTRINO AS WDM CANDIDATE.During the last year a number of works appeared, devoted to search for the decay signal of a DM candidate -sterile neutrino -in the X-ray spectra of astrophysical objects [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Indeed, it was noticed long ago [10] that a right-handed neutrino with its mass in the keV range presents a viable warm dark matter (WDM) candidate. Such a particle would possess a specific radiative decay channel and therefore one can search for its decay line in the X-ray spectra of astrophysical objects [11,12].The recent spark of interest in the search for sterile neutrino DM has several reasons. First, for the direct search of a DM particle, a particle physics model is needed. Most of the particle physics candidates (axion, supersymmetric particles, etc.) would constitute cold dark matter (CDM). CDM models have several difficulties which could be resolved by a warm DM with the particle mass in the keV range. In particular, WDM can ease the problem of the dark halo structures in comparison with the CDM scenario [13,14,15]. Second, as the Standard Model of particle physics (SM) does not contain a DM candidate, most of the extensions of the SM ( like, for example, supersymmetry) require to assume the existence of many new particles and/or validity of new fundamental principles. Such extensions are not based on any available experimental data, but on theoretical arguments only. From this point of view, the extension of the SM with several right-handed neutrinos (i) is, maybe, a minimal extension of the SM one can imagine; (ii) is based on experimental data; (iii) provides naturally a warm DM candidate.Indeed, the existence of right-handed neutrino particles would provide the most natural explanation of neutrino oscill...

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Section: Sterile Neutrino As Wdm Candidatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To improve the existing bounds on DM parameters [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] using these instruments, one can look for the sources with optimized "signal-to-noise" ratio (as e.g. dwarf galaxies [3]) and study them with prolonged observations.…”

Section: Sensitivity Of X-ray Telescopes For Dm Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Search for the light dark matter with an X-ray spectrometer

Boyarsky

Herder

Neronov³

et al. 2007

Astroparticle Physics

118

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“…Such systems already considered include the dark blobs in merging clusters Riemer-Sørensen et al 2007;Abazajian et al 2007) or simply looking out through our own Milky Way halo (Riemer-Sørensen et al 2006;Boyarsky et al 2006b). However, it was demonstrated that the optimal place to search for the decay line of the sterile neutrino is from the dwarf galaxies of our Milky Way such as Ursa Minor, Draco etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the DM decay almost at rest, the decay line is very narrow and easily searched for in X-ray and soft gamma ray observations Riemer-Sørensen et al 2007;Abazajian et al 2007;Riemer-Sørensen et al 2006;Boyarsky et al 2006bBoyarsky et al , 2007bAbazajian et al 2001b;Boyarsky et al 2006aBoyarsky et al , 2008dYüksel et al 2008;Watson et al 2006;Loewenstein et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decaying dark matter in the Draco dwarf galaxy

Riemer-Sørensen¹,

Hansen²

2009

A&A

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Context. The sterile neutrino is an excellent dark matter candidate, which can be searched for in a wide range of astrophysical sites. It has previously been shown that the optimal search strategy is to consider dwarf galaxies belonging to the Milky Way. Aims. We search for line emission from decaying dark matter. Methods. We analyse publicly available Chandra X-ray observations of the dwarf galaxy Draco. Results. The Draco and blank sky (background) spectra are nearly identical in shape, which allows us to conclude: i) dwarf spheroidals are ideal for studying dark matter X-ray emission since the baryonic noise is impressively low; ii) there is very little room for line emission, which leads to constraints in the mass-mixing angle parameter space of the sterile neutrino. We compare the standard flux derivation method to a very conservative rebinning approach. The resulting constraints are strongly dependent on the chosen method.

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“…The decay rate of any dark matter candidate with a radiative two-body decay can be constrained from observations of dark matter concentrations (for references see [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]). The strongest constraints are obtained from studying dark matter dominated regions, and with instruments with high spectral resolution since the decay line is expected only to suffer negligible broadening due to motion of the dark matter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing the nature of dark matter with cosmic x rays: Constraints from “dark blobs” and grating spectra of galaxy clusters

et al. 2007

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Gravitational lensing observations of galaxy clusters have identified dark matter blobs with remarkably low baryonic content. We use such a blob to probe the particle nature of dark matter with x-ray observations. From these observations we improve the most conservative constraints from the Milky Way halo on a particular dark matter candidate, the sterile neutrino, by an order of magnitude. We also study high resolution x-ray grating spectra of a cluster of galaxies. Based on these conservative constraints obtained from cosmic x-ray observations alone, the low mass (m s & 10 keV) and low mixing angle (sin 2 2 & 10 ÿ6 ) sterile neutrino is still a viable dark matter candidate.

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Limits on the radiative decay of sterile neutrino dark matter from the unresolved cosmic and soft x-ray backgrounds

Cited by 112 publications

References 66 publications

Search for the light dark matter with an X-ray spectrometer

Search for the light dark matter with an X-ray spectrometer

Decaying dark matter in the Draco dwarf galaxy

Probing the nature of dark matter with cosmic x rays: Constraints from “dark blobs” and grating spectra of galaxy clusters

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