Current dark matter annihilation constraints from CMB and low-redshift data

By M. Madhavacheril, N. Sehgal, Tracy R. Slatyer Stony Brook, Mit. 2013

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Updated constraints on the dark matter cross section and mass are presented combining cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum measurements from Planck, WMAP9, ACT, and SPT as well as several low-redshift data sets (BAO, HST, and supernovae). For the CMB data sets, we combine WMAP9 temperature and polarization data for l ≤ 431 with Planck temperature data for 432 ≤ l ≤ 2500 , ACT and SPT data for l > 2500 , and Planck CMB four-point lensing measurements. We allow for redshift-dependent energy deposition from dark matter annihilation by using a “universal" energy absorption curve. We also include an updated treatment of the excitation, heating, and ionization energy fractions and provide an updated deposition efficiency factors ( f eff ) for 41 different dark matter models. Assuming perfect energy deposition ( f eff = 1 ) and a thermal cross section, dark matter masses below 26 GeV are excluded at the 2 σ level. Assuming a more generic efficiency of f eff = 0.2 , thermal dark matter masses below 5 GeV are disfavored at the 2 σ level. These limits are a factor of ∼ 2 improvement over those from WMAP9 data alone. These current constraints probe, but do not exclude, dark matter as an explanation for reported anomalous indirect detection observations from AMS-02/PAMELA and the Fermi gamma-ray inner-Galaxy data. They also probe relevant models that would explain anomalous direct detection events from CDMS, CRESST, CoGeNT, and DAMA, as originating from a generic thermal weakly interacting massive particle. Projected constraints from the full Planck release should improve the current limits by another factor of ∼ 2 but will not definitely probe these signals. The proposed CMB Stage IV experiment will more decisively explore the relevant regions and improve upon the Planck constraints by another factor of ∼ 2 .

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/896a6e6b6ea064d85a7fbe47af09d7f361e38336

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Citations in the corpus

The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts (2018, background): “However, Planck has largely saturated this measurement (Madhavacheril et al. 2014; Planck Collaboration 2016e, 2018d; Green et al. 2018), and so SO is expected to improve it by only ∼ 30 percent over Planck.”
Characterization of subhalo structural properties and implications for dark matter annihilation signals (2016, background): “…of measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy (for recent analyses, see, e.g., Lopez-Honorez et al. (2013); Diamanti et al. (2014); Madhavacheril et al. (2014); Ade et al. (2015); Slatyer (2016); Kawasaki et al. (2015)). and definitive substructure boost model, some important…”
The effects of QCD equation of state on the relic density of WIMP dark matter (2015, background): “PLANCK data will lead to considerable stronger constraints [52, 63].”
SIMP spectroscopy (2015, methodology): “These come from measurements of the CMB power spectrum [43] as well as from measurements of diffuse gamma-rays in the galactic halo [44].”
PICO: Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (2019, background): “• Dark Matter CMB experiments are effective in constraining dark matter candidates in the lower mass range, which is not available for terrestrial direct detection experiments [7–12].”
Direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter with semiconductor targets (2015, background): “[72, 73], and from gamma-rays in the Milky-Way halo [74].”