Response to a comment on Dessert et al. "The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5 keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations"

Abstract

The dark matter explanation of the 3.5 keV line is strongly disfavored by our work in Dessert et al. 2020. Boyarsky et al. 2020 questions that conclusion: modeling additional background lines is claimed to weaken the limit sufficiently to re-allow a dark matter interpretation. We respond as follows. 1) A more conservative limit is obtained by modeling additional lines; this point appeared in its entirety in our work in Dessert et al., though we also showed that the inclusion of such lines is not necessary. 2) Despite suggestions in Boyarsky et al., even the more conservative limits strongly disfavor a decaying dark matter origin of the 3.5 keV line.

arXiv comment7 pages, 1 figure, response to technical comment solicited by Science. Version published in PDU. Full analysis available at https://github.com/bsafdi/BlankSkyfor3p5

References in corpus (9)

• Detection of An Unidentified Emission Line in the Stacked X-ray spectrum of Galaxy Clusters
• An unidentified line in X-ray spectra of the Andromeda galaxy and Perseus galaxy cluster
• The Circular Velocity Curve of the Milky Way from $5$ to $25$ kpc
• The long bar as seen by the VVV survey: I. Colour-magnitude diagrams
• Stellar mass map and dark matter distribution in M31
• Evidence for an Intermediate-Mass Milky Way from Gaia DR2 Halo Globular Cluster Motions
• The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5-keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations
• Searching for the 3.5 keV Line in the Deep Fields with Chandra: the 10 Ms observations
• A Search for Dark Matter Annihilation in Galaxy Groups

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• Searches for sterile neutrinos and axionlike particles from the Galactic halo with eROSITA
• On the origin of matter in the Universe
• Decaying dark matter in dwarf spheroidal galaxies: Prospects for X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes
• Constraining Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter in the Milky Way Halo with Swift-XRT
• Anticipating the XRISM search for the decay of resonantly produced sterile neutrino dark matter