Probing dark matter interactions with 21cm observations

Abstract

Similarly to warm dark matter which features a cut-off in the matter power spectrum due to free-streaming, many interacting dark matter models predict a suppression of the matter power spectrum on small length scales through collisional damping. Forecasts for 21cm line intensity mapping have shown that an instrument like the SKA will be able to probe a suppression of power in warm dark matter scenarios in a statistically significant way. Here we investigate the implications of these findings on interacting dark matter scenarios, particularly dark matter-neutrino interactions, which we use as an example. Using a suite of cosmological $N$-body simulations, we demonstrate that interacting scenarios show a suppression of the non-linear power spectrum similar to warm dark matter models. This implies that 21cm line intensity mapping will be able to set the strongest limits yet on dark matter-neutrino scattering, improving the constraints by two orders of magnitude over current Lyman-$\alpha$ bounds, and by four orders of magnitude over cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations limits. However, to distinguish between warm dark matter and interacting scenarios, our simulations show that percent-level precision measurements of the matter power spectrum at redshifts $z\gtrsim 15$ are necessary, as the key features of interacting scenarios are washed out by non-linear evolution at later times.

21 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication

References in corpus (21)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe
• Constraints on the Self-Interaction Cross-Section of Dark Matter from Numerical Simulations of the Merging Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657-5
• Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization
• Late-time cosmology with 21cm intensity mapping experiments
• 21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal
• Turning off the Lights: How Dark is Dark Matter?
• Discreteness effects in simulations of Hot/Warm dark matter
• Using the Milky Way satellites to study interactions between cold dark matter and radiation
• Cosmological bounds on dark matter-neutrino interactions
• Simulating nonlinear cosmological structure formation with massive neutrinos
• Results from EDGES High-Band: I. Constraints on Phenomenological Models for the Global $21$ cm Signal
• Dark matter-radiation interactions: the impact on dark matter haloes
• Modeling the neutral hydrogen distribution in the post-reionization Universe: intensity mapping
• Dark Radiation and interacting scenarios
• Hidden Charged Dark Matter and Chiral Dark Radiation
• The full Boltzmann hierarchy for dark matter-massive neutrino interactions
• Using CMB spectral distortions to distinguish between dark matter solutions to the small-scale crisis
• Structure Formation and the Global 21-cm Signal in the Presence of Coulomb-like Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions
• The Effect of Thermal Velocities on Structure Formation in N-body Simulations of Warm Dark Matter
• Constraints on Dark Matter-Neutrino Interaction from 21-cm Cosmology and Forecasts on SKA1-Low

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Constraints on dark matter-neutrino scattering from the Milky-Way satellites and subhalo modeling for dark acoustic oscillations
• BEoRN: A fast and flexible framework to simulate the epoch of reionisation and cosmic dawn
• Dark matter coupled to radiation: Limits from the Milky Way satellites
• Constraining neutrino-DM interactions with Milky Way dwarf spheroidals and supernova neutrinos
• Gravitational-wave event rates as a new probe for dark matter microphysics
• Signatures of afterglows from light dark matter boosted by supernova neutrinos in current and future large underground detectors
• Joint 21-cm and CMB Forecasts for Constraining Self-Interacting Massive Neutrinos
• A solution to the S8 tension through neutrino-dark matter interactions
• Sensitivity of the Global 21-cm Signal to Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering
• Forecasting 21-cm power spectrum sensitivity to dark Matter-baryon scattering
• Using dust to constrain dark matter models
• 21 cm Cosmology Sensitivity to Small-Scale Structure: Warm vs Neutrino-Interacting Dark Matter