The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: limits on dark matter-baryon interactions from DR4 power spectra

Abstract

Diverse astrophysical observations suggest the existence of cold dark matter that interacts only gravitationally with radiation and ordinary baryonic matter. Any nonzero coupling between dark matter and baryons would provide a significant step towards understanding the particle nature of dark matter. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide constraints on such a coupling that complement laboratory searches. In this work we place upper limits on a variety of models for dark matter elastic scattering with protons and electrons by combining large-scale CMB data from the Planck satellite with small-scale information from Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR4 data. In the case of velocity-independent scattering, we obtain bounds on the interaction cross section for protons that are 40\% tighter than previous constraints from the CMB anisotropy. For some models with velocity-dependent scattering we find best-fitting cross sections with a 2$\sigma$ deviation from zero, but these scattering models are not statistically preferred over $\Lambda$CDM in terms of model selection.

8 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
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• Bounds on Velocity-Dependent Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering from Large-Scale Structure
• Multipole vector dark matter below the GeV-scale
• The Glow of Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter: (I) Large Scale Structures
• Sensitivity of the Global 21-cm Signal to Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering
• The Simons Observatory: impact of bandpass, polarization angle and calibration uncertainties on small-scale power spectrum analysis
• Weak Lensing Constraints on Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions with $N$-Body Simulations and Machine Learning
• Probing levitodynamics with multi-stochastic forces and the simple applications on the dark matter detection in optical levitation experiment
• Dark Secrets of Baryons: Illuminating Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions with JWST
• Search for H2 cloudlets in our backyard