X-ray lines from dark matter: the good, the bad, and the unlikely

Frandsen, Mads T.; Sannino, Francesco; Shoemaker, Ian M.; Svendsen, Ole

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2014/05/033

Cited by 63 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…This result triggered significant interest as it seems consistent with a long-sought-for signal from dark matter decay , annihilation [11,35,48], de-excitation [11,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] or conversion in the magnetic field [59][60][61]. Many particle physics models that predict such properties for the dark matter particle, have been put forward, including sterile neutrino, axion, axino, gravitino and many others, see for reviews e.g.…”

supporting

confidence: 52%

Checking the Dark Matter Origin of a 3.53 keV Line with the Milky Way Center

et al. 2015

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We detect a line at 3.539 ± 0.011 keV in the deep exposure dataset of the Galactic Center region, observed with the XMM-Newton. The dark matter interpretation of the signal observed in the Perseus galaxy cluster, the Andromeda galaxy [1] and in the stacked spectra of galaxy clusters [2], together with non-observation of the line in blank sky data, put both lower and upper limits on the possible intensity of the line in the Galactic Center data. Our result is consistent with these constraints for a class of Milky Way mass models, presented previously by observers, and would correspond to radiative decay dark matter lifetime τDM ∼ 6 − 8 × 10 27 sec. Although it is hard to exclude an astrophysical origin of this line based the Galactic Center data alone, this is an important consistency check of the hypothesis that encourages to check it with more observational data that are expected by the end of 2015.Recently, two independent groups [1, 2] reported a detection of an unidentified X-ray line at energy 3.53 keV in the long-exposure X-ray observations of a number of dark matterdominated objects. The authors of [2] have observed this line in a stacked XMM spectrum of 73 galaxy clusters spanning a redshift range 0.01 − 0.35 and separately in subsamples of nearby and remote clusters. Ref. [1] have found this line in the outskirts of the Perseus cluster and in the central 14 ′ of the Andromeda galaxy. The global significance of detection of the same line in the datasets of Ref.[1] is 4.3σ (taking into account the trial factors); the signal in [2] has significance above 4σ based on completely independent data.The position of the line is correctly redshifted between galaxy clusters [2] and between the Perseus cluster and the Andromeda galaxy [1]. In a very long exposure blank sky observation (15.7 Msec of cleaned data) the feature is absent [1]. This makes it unlikely that an instrumental effect is at the origin of this feature (e.g. an unmodeled wiggle in the effective area).To identify this spectral feature with an atomic line in galaxy clusters, one should assume a strongly super-solar abundance of potassium or some anomalous argon transition [2]. Moreover, according to the results of [1] this should be true not only in the center of the Perseus cluster considered in [2], but also (i) in its outer parts up to at least 1/2 of its virial radius and (ii) in the Andromeda galaxy.This result triggered significant interest as it seems consistent with a long-sought-for signal from dark matter decay , annihilation [11, 35, 48], de-excitation [11, 49-58] or conversion in the magnetic field [59][60][61]. Many particle physics models that predict such properties for the dark matter particle, have been put forward, including sterile neutrino, axion, axino, gravitino and many others, see for reviews e.g. [37,62] and references therein. If the interaction of dark matter particles is weak enough (e.g. much weaker than that of the Standard Model neutrino), they need not to be stable as their lifetime can exceed the age of the Universe...

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supporting

confidence: 52%

Checking the Dark Matter Origin of a 3.53 keV Line with the Milky Way Center

et al. 2015

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“…The situation is similar for directly annihilating dark matter (e.g. Dudas et al 2014;Frandsen et al 2014;Baek & Okada 2014) since they are all designed to produce the stacked cluster signal. Bulbul et al (2014) and Boyarsky et al (2014) interpreted the detected line emission excess in the context of sterile neutrinos.…”

Section: Annihilation-like Dark Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraints on the presence of a 3.5 keV dark matter emission line fromChandraobservations of the Galactic centre

Riemer-Sørensen

2016

A&A

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Context. Recent findings of line emission at 3.5 keV in both individual and stacked X-ray spectra of galaxy clusters have been speculated to have dark matter origin. Aims. If the origin is indeed dark matter, the emission line is expected to be detectable from the Milky Way dark matter halo. Methods. We perform a line search in public Chandra X-ray observations of the region near Sgr A*. We derive upper limits on the line emission flux for the 2.0−9.0 keV energy interval and discuss their potential physical interpretations including various scenarios of decaying and annihilating dark matter. Results. While we find no clear evidence for its presence, the upper flux limits are not inconsistent with the recent detections for conservative mass profiles of the Milky Way. Conclusions. The results depend mildly on the spectral modelling, and strongly on the choice of dark matter profile.

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“…However, since the initial excitement there have been challenges to the decaying dark matter interpretation [36][37][38], including from the non-observation of the line in stacked dwarf spheroidal galaxies [39] and other stacked galaxies [40] despite its observation in the Milky Way [41]. Perhaps the most plausible explanations that avoid these issues are excited dark matter [42][43][44][45][46] and an dark matter decaying to an axion-like particle in the magnetic field of a cluster [47][48][49][50][51]. On the other hand, the decaying dark matter explanation is not yet completely excluded, and so in this appendix we shall describe how a class of models related to the FSSM provides an explanation for the line.…”

Section: Jhep11(2015)100mentioning

confidence: 99%

(O)Mega split

Benakli¹,

Goodsell²

2015

J. High Energ. Phys.

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We study two realisations of the Fake Split Supersymmetry Model (FSSM), the simplest model that can easily reproduce the experimental value of the Higgs mass for an arbitrarily high supersymmetry scale M S , as a consequence of swapping higgsinos for equivalent states, fake higgsinos, with suppressed Yukawa couplings. If the LSP is identified as the main Dark matter component, then a standard thermal history of the Universe implies upper bounds on M S , which we derive. On the other hand, we show that renormalisation group running of soft masses above M S barely constrains the model -in stark contrast to Split Supersymmetry -and hence we can have a "Mega Split" spectrum even with all of these assumptions and constraints, which include the requirements of a correct relic abundance, a gluino life-time compatible with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and absence of signals in present direct detection experiments of inelastic dark matter. In an appendix we describe a related scenario, Fake Split Extended Supersymmetry, which enjoys similar properties.

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X-ray lines from dark matter: the good, the bad, and the unlikely

Cited by 63 publications

References 86 publications

Checking the Dark Matter Origin of a 3.53 keV Line with the Milky Way Center

Checking the Dark Matter Origin of a 3.53 keV Line with the Milky Way Center

Constraints on the presence of a 3.5 keV dark matter emission line fromChandraobservations of the Galactic centre

(O)Mega split

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