Constraining dark matter-neutrino interactions using the CMB and large-scale structure

By R. Wilkinson, C. Bœhm, Julien Lesgourgues. 2014

173 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a new study on the elastic scattering cross section of dark matter (DM) and neutrinos using the latest cosmological data from Planck and large-scale structure experiments. We find that the strongest constraints are set by the Lyman-α forest, giving σDM−ν ≲ 10−33(mDM/GeV) cm2 if the cross section is constant and a present-day value of σDM−ν ≲ 10−45(mDM/GeV) cm2 if it scales as the temperature squared. These are the most robust limits on DM-neutrino interactions to date, demonstrating that one can use the distribution of matter in the Universe to probe dark (``invisible") interactions. Additionally, we show that scenarios involving thermal MeV DM and a constant elastic scattering cross section naturally predict (i) a cut-off in the matter power spectrum at the Lyman-α scale, (ii) Neff ∼ 3.5 ± 0.4, (iii) H0 ∼ 71 ± 3km s−1Mpc−1 and (iv) the possible generation of neutrino masses.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b8b23c7aaa6cc9b8a424d00d49c8f3db43e14f35

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Citations in the corpus

Reducing the H0 and σ8 tensions with dark matter-neutrino interactions. (2017, methodology): “We performed a similar analysis to [21].”
Using the Full Power of the Cosmic Microwave Background to Probe Axion Dark Matter (2017, methodology): “…models for DM beyond CDM, including limits on the mass of standard model neutrinos (Planck Collaboration et al. 2016b), thermal axions (Archidiacono et al. 2013), DM interactions (Wilkinson et al. 2014b; Wilkinson et al. 2014a), and generalized models (Cyr-Racine et al. 2016; Thomas et al. 2016).”
Alleviating the H0 and σ8 anomalies with a decaying dark matter model (2019, background): “Numerous models of dark matter interacting within the dark sector have been explored [64– 67].”
Evidence for dark matter interactions in cosmological precision data? (2015, background): “In addition, any new interactions of especially photons but also neutrinos are tightly constrained by the global fit to the CMB [5, 9, 10].”
CMB-S4 Science Case, Reference Design, and Project Plan (2019, background): “A radiation fluid whose fluctuations do not exceed the sound speed of the plasma [179, 180] could arise from large neutrino self-interactions [181, 182, 183, 184, 185], neutrino-dark sector interactions [186, 187], or dark radiation self-coupling [188, 189, 190].”
Non-Abelian dark matter and dark radiation (2015, unknown): “[19, 47]).”
Refined bounds on MeV-scale thermal dark sectors from BBN and the CMB (2019, background): “[80] R.”
Using the Milky Way satellites to study interactions between cold dark matter and radiation (2014, methodology): “However, the suppression of subhaloes in γCDM is too strong if we consider σDM−γ = 10 −7 σTh (mDM/GeV) (bottom-right panel), which just satisfies the limit from the CMB (Wilkinson et al. 2014).”