21-cm Fluctuations from Charged Dark Matter

Abstract

The epoch of the formation of the first stars, known as the cosmic dawn, has emerged as a new arena in the search for dark matter. In particular, the first claimed 21-cm detection exhibits a deeper global absorption feature than expected, which could be caused by a low baryonic temperature, and has been interpreted as a sign for electromagnetic interactions between baryons and dark matter. This hypothesis has a striking prediction: large temperature anisotropies sourced by the velocity-dependent cooling of the baryons. However, in order to remain consistent with the rest of cosmological observations, only part of the dark matter is allowed to be charged, and thus interactive. Here we compute, for the first time, the 21-cm fluctuations caused by a charged subcomponent of the dark matter, including both the pre- and post-recombination evolution of all fluids. We find that, for the same parameters that can explain the anomalous 21-cm absorption signal, any percent-level fraction of charged dark matter would source novel 21-cm fluctuations with a unique acoustic spectrum, and with an amplitude above any other known effects. These fluctuations are uncorrelated with the usual adiabatic anisotropies, and would be observable at high significance with interferometers such as LOFAR and HERA, thus providing a novel probe of dark matter at cosmic dawn.

6 pages, 4 figures. Updated to match PRL accepted version

References in corpus (21)

• An absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz in the sky-averaged spectrum
• Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars
• The non-gravitational interactions of dark matter in colliding galaxy clusters
• Light Dark Matter: Models and Constraints
• Insights on Dark Matter from Hydrogen during Cosmic Dawn
• Enhanced global signal of neutral hydrogen due to excess radiation at cosmic dawn
• Early-Universe Constraints on Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering and their Implications for a Global 21cm Signal
• Evolution of the 21 cm signal throughout cosmic history
• Probing sub-GeV Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering with Cosmological Observables
• Constraining Baryon--Dark Matter Scattering with the Cosmic Dawn 21-cm Signal
• Constraints on scattering of keV--TeV dark matter with protons in the early Universe
• New Physics in the Rayleigh-Jeans Tail of the CMB
• The Fast Fourier Transform Telescope
• 21cm Limits on Decaying Dark Matter and Primordial Black Holes
• The EDGES 21 cm Anomaly and Properties of Dark Matter
• Too Hot, Too Cold or Just Right? Implications of a 21-cm Signal for Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• Large-scale BAO signatures of the smallest galaxies
• The Effects of Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering on Redshifted 21 cm Signals
• Bounds on Dark Matter annihilations from 21 cm data
• Constraining Primordial Black Holes with the EDGES 21-cm Absorption Signal
• Bounds on Dark Matter decay from 21 cm line

Cited by in corpus (67)

• Data Analysis for Precision 21 cm Cosmology
• Signature of Excess Radio Background in the 21-cm Global Signal and Power Spectrum
• Neutrino Mass Ordering from Oscillations and Beyond: 2018 Status and Future Prospects
• Tighter Limits on Dark Matter Explanations of the Anomalous EDGES 21cm Signal
• HERA Phase I Limits on the Cosmic 21-cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology During the Epoch of Reionization
• 21cmFAST v3: A Python-integrated C code forgenerating 3D realizations of the cosmic 21cm signal
• The redshifted 21-cm signal in the EDGES low-band spectrum
• Probing the Small-Scale Matter Power Spectrum with Large-Scale 21-cm Data
• Constraining the primordial black hole abundance with 21cm cosmology
• Constraints on Dark Matter with a moderately large and velocity-dependent DM-nucleon cross-section
• A User's Guide to Extracting Cosmological Information from Line-Intensity Maps
• The Effects of Population III X-ray and Radio Backgrounds on the Cosmological 21-cm Signal
• The cosmology of sub-MeV dark matter freeze-in
• Dawn of the dark: unified dark sectors and the EDGES Cosmic Dawn 21-cm signal
• Robust Velocity-induced Acoustic Oscillations at Cosmic Dawn
• A Standard Ruler at Cosmic Dawn
• Axion-Photon Conversion and Effects on 21cm Observation
• Implications of the possible 21-cm line excess at cosmic dawn on dynamics of interacting dark energy
• An Effective Model for the Cosmic-Dawn 21-cm Signal
• Formulating and critically examining the assumptions of global 21-cm signal analyses: How to avoid the false troughs that can appear in single spectrum fits
• The 21cm Absorption Line and Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter Model
• Impact of the Primordial Stellar Initial Mass Function on the 21-cm Signal
• Astrophysics and Cosmology with Line-Intensity Mapping
• Millicharged Cosmic Rays and Low Recoil Detectors
• Bounds on Ultra-Light Hidden-Photon Dark Matter from 21cm at Cosmic Dawn
• A cosmologically consistent millicharged dark matter solution to the EDGES anomaly of possible string theory origin
• Lunar Orbit Measurement of Cosmic Dawn 21 cm Global Spectrum
• Constraints on dark matter-neutrino scattering from the Milky-Way satellites and subhalo modeling for dark acoustic oscillations
• Probing ultra-light axions with the 21-cm Signal during Cosmic Dawn
• Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck formalism for dark-matter--baryon scattering
• ETHOS -- An Effective Theory of Structure Formation: Impact of Dark Acoustic Oscillations on Cosmic Dawn
• Constraining spinning primordial black holes with global 21-cm signal
• Shedding Light on Dark Matter and Neutrino Interactions from Cosmology
• Signatures of Cosmic Ray Heating in 21-cm Observables
• The EDGES signal: An imprint from the mirror world?
• 21cmFirstCLASS I. Cosmological tool for $\Lambda$CDM and beyond
• Impact of EDGES 21cm Global Signal on Primordial Power Spectrum
• Physics Beyond The Standard Model with Circular Polarization in the CMB and CMB-21cm Cross-Correlation
• Primordial magnetic fields during the cosmic dawn in light of EDGES 21-cm signal
• The Global 21 cm Absorption from Cosmic Dawn with Inhomogeneous Gas Distribution
• A galaxy-free phenomenological model for the 21-cm power spectrum during reionization
• EDGES signal in presence of magnetic fields
• A tower of hidden sectors: a general treatment and physics implications
• NASA Probe Study Report: Farside Array for Radio Science Investigations of the Dark ages and Exoplanets (FARSIDE)
• Probing Dark Relativistic Species and Their Interactions with Dark Matter through CMB and 21cm surveys
• Bounds on sterile neutrino lifetime and mixing angle with active neutrinos by global 21 cm signal
• Dark Cosmology: Investigating Dark Matter & Exotic Physics in the Dark Ages using the Redshifted 21-cm Global Spectrum
• A Lunar Farside Low Radio Frequency Array for Dark Ages 21-cm Cosmology
• On the Prospects of Measuring the Cosmic Dawn 21-cm Power Spectrum using the Upgraded Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (uGMRT)
• Could the 21-cm absorption be explained by the dark matter suggested by ${}^8$Be transitions?
• Impact of cosmic rays on the global 21-cm signal during cosmic dawn
• Analytic Formulation of 21 cm Signal from Cosmic Dawn: Ly$\alpha$ Fluctuations
• Constraints on freeze-in dark matter from Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and 21-cm signal : single-field models
• 21 cm cosmology and spin temperature reduction via spin-dependent dark matter interactions
• Sensitivity of the Global 21-cm Signal to Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering
• Large HI optical depth and Redshifted 21-cm signal from cosmic dawn
• Possible s-wave annihilation for MeV dark matter with the 21-cm absorption
• Numerical solution of the exact background collisional Boltzmann equation for dark matter-baryon scattering
• 21-cm Constraints on Dark Matter Annihilation after an Early Matter-Dominated Era
• Forecasting 21-cm power spectrum sensitivity to dark Matter-baryon scattering
• The First Stars May Shed Light on Dark Matter
• Velocity-dependent self-interacting dark matter from thermal freeze-out and tests in direct detections
• Probing Non-Minimal Dark Sectors via the 21 cm Line at Cosmic Dawn
• Confronting global 21-cm signal with ${\mathbb{Z}}_3$ symmetric dark matter models
• Anomalous EDGES 21-cm Signal and Moduli Dominated Era
• Particle physics and cosmology intertwined
• Sensitivities on non-spinning and spinning primordial black hole dark matter with global 21 cm troughs