The cosmic optical background excess, dark matter, and line-intensity mapping
arXiv:2203.11236 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.231301
Abstract
Recent studies using New Horizons LORRI images have returned the most precise measurement of the cosmic optical background to date, yielding a flux that exceeds that expected from deep galaxy counts by roughly a factor of two. We investigate whether this excess, detected at significance, is due to axion-like dark matter that decays to monoenergetic photons. We compute the spectral energy distribution from such decays and the contribution to the flux measured by LORRI. Assuming that axion-like particles make up all of the dark matter, the parameter space unconstrained to date that explains the measured excess spans masses and effective axion-photon couplings of 8 - 20 eV masses and 3 - 6 GeV, respectively. If the excess arises from dark-matter decay to a photon line, there will be a significant signal in forthcoming line-intensity mapping measurements that will allow the discrimination of this hypothesis from other candidates.
arXiv comment8 pages, 2 figures. Minor modifications, matches published version in PRL
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