Comparison of Low-Redshift Lyman-α Forest Observations to Hydrodynamical Simulations with Dark Photon Dark Matter.

Recent work has suggested that an additional ≲6.9 eV per baryon of heating in the intergalactic medium is needed to reconcile hydrodynamical simulations with Lyman-α forest absorption line widths at redshift z≃0.1. Resonant conversion of dark photon dark matter into low frequency photons is a viable source of such heating. We perform the first hydrodynamical simulations including dark photon heating and show that dark photons with mass m_{A^{'}}∼8×10^{-14} eV c^{-2} and kinetic mixing ε∼5×10^{-15} can alleviate the heating excess. A prediction of this model is a nonstandard thermal history for underdense gas at z≳3.

Lyman-α Forest Constraints on Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter.

The renewed interest in the possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) may constitute a significant part of dark matter has provided motivation for revisiting old observational constraints, as well as developing new ones. We present new limits on the PBH abundance, from a comprehensive analysis of high-resolution high-redshift Lyman-α forest data. Poisson fluctuations in the PBH number density induce a small-scale power enhancement which departs from the standard cold dark matter prediction. Using a grid of hydrodynamic simulations exploring different values of astrophysical parameters, we obtain a marginalized upper limit on the PBH mass of f_{PBH}M_{PBH}∼60M_{⊙} at 2σ, when a Gaussian prior on the reionization redshift is imposed, preventing its posterior distribution from peaking on very high values, which are disfavored by the most recent estimates obtained both through cosmic microwave background and intergalactic medium observations. Such a bound weakens to f_{PBH}M_{PBH}∼170M_{⊙} when a conservative flat prior is instead assumed. Both limits significantly improve on previous constraints from the same physical observable. We also extend our predictions to nonmonochromatic PBH mass distributions, ruling out large regions of the parameter space for some of the most viable PBH extended mass functions.

Enhancing the Spectral Hardening of Cosmic TeV Photons by Mixing with Axionlike Particles in the Magnetized Cosmic Web.

Large-scale extragalactic magnetic fields may induce conversions between very-high-energy photons and axionlike particles (ALPs), thereby shielding the photons from absorption on the extragalactic background light. However, in simplified "cell" models, used so far to represent extragalactic magnetic fields, this mechanism would be strongly suppressed by current astrophysical bounds. Here we consider a recent model of extragalactic magnetic fields obtained from large-scale cosmological simulations. Such simulated magnetic fields would have large enhancement in the filaments of matter. As a result, photon-ALP conversions would produce a significant spectral hardening for cosmic TeV photons. This effect would be probed with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array detector. This possible detection would give a unique chance to perform a tomography of the magnetized cosmic web with ALPs.

First Constraints on Fuzzy Dark Matter from Lyman-α Forest Data and Hydrodynamical Simulations.

We present constraints on the masses of extremely light bosons dubbed fuzzy dark matter (FDM) from Lyman-α forest data. Extremely light bosons with a de Broglie wavelength of ∼1 kpc have been suggested as dark matter candidates that may resolve some of the current small scale problems of the cold dark matter model. For the first time, we use hydrodynamical simulations to model the Lyman-α flux power spectrum in these models and compare it to the observed flux power spectrum from two different data sets: the XQ-100 and HIRES/MIKE quasar spectra samples. After marginalization over nuisance and physical parameters and with conservative assumptions for the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) that allow for jumps in the temperature of up to 5000 K, XQ-100 provides a lower limit of 7.1×10^{-22} eV, HIRES/MIKE returns a stronger limit of 14.3×10^{-22} eV, while the combination of both data sets results in a limit of 20×10^{-22} eV (2σ C.L.). The limits for the analysis of the combined data sets increases to 37.5×10^{-22} eV (2σ C.L.) when a smoother thermal history is assumed where the temperature of the IGM evolves as a power law in redshift. Light boson masses in the range 1-10×10^{-22} eV are ruled out at high significance by our analysis, casting strong doubts that FDM helps solve the "small scale crisis" of the cold dark matter models.

Particle Dark Matter Searches Outside the Local Group.

If dark matter (DM) is composed by particles which are nongravitationally coupled to ordinary matter, their annihilations or decays in cosmic structures can result in detectable radiation. We show that the most powerful technique to detect a particle DM signal outside the Local Group is to study the angular cross-correlation of nongravitational signals with low-redshift gravitational probes. This method allows us to enhance the signal to noise from the regions of the Universe where the DM-induced emission is preferentially generated. We demonstrate the power of this approach by focusing on GeV-TeV DM and on the recent cross-correlation analysis between the 2MASS galaxy catalogue and the Fermi-LAT γ-ray maps. We show that this technique is more sensitive than other extragalactic γ-ray probes, such as the energy spectrum and angular autocorrelation of the extragalactic background, and emission from clusters of galaxies. Intriguingly, we find that the measured cross-correlation can be well fitted by a DM component, with a thermal annihilation cross section and mass between 10 and 100 GeV, depending on the small-scale DM properties and γ-ray production mechanism. This solicits further data collection and dedicated analyses.

Lenses in the forest: cross correlation of the Lyman-alpha flux with cosmic microwave background lensing.

We present a theoretical estimate for a new observable: the cross correlation between the Lyman-alpha flux fluctuations in quasar spectra and the convergence of the cosmic microwave background as measured along the same line of sight. As a first step toward the assessment of its detectability, we estimate the signal-to-noise ratio using linear theory. Although the signal-to-noise is small for a single line of sight and peaks at somewhat smaller redshifts than those probed by the Lyman-alpha forest, we estimate a total signal-to-noise of 9 for cross correlating quasar spectra of SDSS-III with Planck and 20 for cross correlating with a future polarization based cosmic microwave background experiment. The detection of this effect would be a direct measure of the neutral hydrogen-matter cross correlation and could provide important information on the growth of structures at large scales in a redshift range which is still poorly probed.

Realistic sterile neutrino dark matter with keV mass does not contradict cosmological bounds.

Previous fits of sterile neutrino dark matter (DM) models to cosmological data ruled out masses smaller than approximately 8 keV, assuming a production mechanism that is not the best motivated from a particle physics point of view. Here we focus on a realistic extension of the standard model with three sterile neutrinos, consistent with neutrino oscillation data and baryogenesis, with the lightest sterile neutrino being the DM particle. We show that for each mass >or= 2 keV there exists at least one model accounting for 100% of DM and consistent with Lyman-alpha and other cosmological, astrophysical, and particle physics data.

How cold is cold dark matter? Small-scales constraints from the flux power spectrum of the high-redshift lyman-alpha forest.

We present constraints on the mass of warm dark matter (WDM) particles derived from the Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum of 55 high-resolution HIRES spectra at 2.0 or approximately 1.2 keV (2sigma) if the WDM consists of early decoupled thermal relics and m(WDM) > or approximately 5.6 keV (2sigma) for sterile neutrinos. Adding the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum, we get m(WDM) > or approximately 4 keV and m(WDM) > or approximately 28 keV (2sigma) for thermal relics and sterile neutrinos. These results improve previous constraints by a factor of 2.

Can sterile neutrinos be ruled out as warm dark matter candidates?

We present constraints on the mass of warm dark matter (WDM) particles from a combined analysis of the matter power spectrum inferred from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum at 2.2