Milky Way Satellite Census. IV. Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from Observations of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies

Mau, S. and Nadler, E.O. and Desai, Shantanu and et al, . (2022) Milky Way Satellite Census. IV. Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from Observations of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies. Astrophysical Journal, 932 (2). pp. 1-21. ISSN 0004-637X

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Abstract

We use a recent census of the Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxy population to constrain the lifetime of particle dark matter (DM). We consider two-body decaying dark matter (DDM) in which a heavy DM particle decays with lifetime τ comparable to the age of the universe to a lighter DM particle (with mass splitting ϵ) and to a dark radiation species. These decays impart a characteristic "kick velocity,"V kick = ϵ c, on the DM daughter particles, significantly depleting the DM content of low-mass subhalos and making them more susceptible to tidal disruption. We fit the suppression of the present-day DDM subhalo mass function (SHMF) as a function of τ and V kick using a suite of high-resolution zoom-in simulations of MW-mass halos, and we validate this model on new DDM simulations of systems specifically chosen to resemble the MW. We implement our DDM SHMF predictions in a forward model that incorporates inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution and detectability of MW satellites and uncertainties in the mapping between galaxies and DM halos, the properties of the MW system, and the disruption of subhalos by the MW disk using an empirical model for the galaxy-halo connection. By comparing to the observed MW satellite population, we conservatively exclude DDM models with τ < 18 Gyr (29 Gyr) for V kick = 20 kms-1 (40 kms-1) at 95% confidence. These constraints are among the most stringent and robust small-scale structure limits on the DM particle lifetime and strongly disfavor DDM models that have been proposed to alleviate the Hubble and S 8 tensions. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Desai, Shantanu	http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0466-3288

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MICINN under grants ESP2017-89838, PGC2018-094773, PGC2018-102021, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (INCT) do e-Universo (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2).

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxy, particle dark matter (DM), dark radiation species

Subjects:

Physics
Physics > Astronomy Astrophysics

Divisions:

Department of Physics

Depositing User:

. LibTrainee 2021

Date Deposited:

18 Jul 2022 09:59

Last Modified:

18 Jul 2022 09:59