Constraints on freeze-in dark matter from Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and 21-cm signal : single-field models

Abstract

We report new Lyman-$\alpha$ and 21-cm constraints on freeze-in dark matter (FIDM) which injects energy into the intergalactic medium either through annihilation or decay to photon(s) or electron-positron pair. With respect to Lyman-$\alpha$ we fix the baseline ionization history using low redshift data about astrophysical reionization, whereas for 21-cm signal we adopt the baseline values of 21-cm power spectrum through a standard modeling of star formation developed so far. Using the latest numerical tools, we show that (i) for sterile neutrino FIDM, current Lyman-$\alpha$ data and future sensitivity of SKA-low (1000 hrs) on the 21-cm power spectra excludes the FIDM mass up to $1.8\times 10^{-3}$ GeV at 95$\%$ CL and $5.46\times 10^{-4}$ GeV, respectively, and (ii) for millicharged FIDM, current Lyman-$\alpha$ data only excludes the millicharge down to $10^{-8}$ within the FIDM mass range of $10^{-3}-1$ GeV at 95$\%$ CL, suggesting that the surviving parameter space of millicharged FIDM is still intact.

arXiv comment17 pages, 5 figures; v2: revised version with 19 pp and 8 figs; v3: to match the published version

References in corpus (54)

• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• An absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz in the sky-averaged spectrum
• Freeze-In Production of FIMP Dark Matter
• 21-cm cosmology
• 21cmFAST: A Fast, Semi-Numerical Simulation of the High-Redshift 21-cm Signal
• The role of sterile neutrinos in cosmology and astrophysics
• Supernova 1987A Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Sectors, Millicharged Particles, the QCD Axion, and an Axion-like Particle
• CMB Constraints on WIMP Annihilation: Energy Absorption During the Recombination Epoch
• Thermally Generated Gauge Singlet Scalars as Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• The Stueckelberg $Z^{\prime }$ Extension with Kinetic Mixing and Milli-Charged Dark Matter From the Hidden Sector
• Detecting Dark Matter Annihilation with CMB Polarization : Signatures and Experimental Prospects
• Improved upper limits on the 21-cm signal power spectrum of neutral hydrogen at $\mathbf{z}\approx 9.1$ from LOFAR
• Constraining Light Dark Matter with Diffuse X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Observations
• Constraining Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering with Linear Cosmology
• Upper limits on the 21-cm Epoch of Reionization power spectrum from one night with LOFAR
• Wouthuysen-Field coupling strength and application to high-redshift 21 cm radiation
• General Constraints on Dark Matter Decay from the Cosmic Microwave Background
• ETHOS - An Effective Theory of Structure Formation: From dark particle physics to the matter distribution of the Universe
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages II. Ionization, Heating and Photon Production from Arbitrary Energy Injections
• Sterile neutrino dark matter bounds from galaxies of the Local Group
• Early-Universe Constraints on Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering and their Implications for a Global 21cm Signal
• First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum
• Probing sub-GeV Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering with Cosmological Observables
• Improved Constraints on the 21 cm EoR Power Spectrum and the X-Ray Heating of the IGM with HERA Phase I Observations
• New Constraints on IGM Thermal Evolution from the Lyα Forest Power Spectrum
• The Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization with the Square Kilometre Array
• The Darkest Hour Before Dawn: Contributions to Cosmic Reionization from Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• New Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from $NuSTAR$ M31 Observations
• 21cmFAST v3: A Python-integrated C code forgenerating 3D realizations of the cosmic 21cm signal
• Right-Handed Sneutrino as Cold Dark Matter
• Remarks on the KARMEN Anomaly
• Too Hot, Too Cold or Just Right? Implications of a 21-cm Signal for Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at $z>5$ with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra
• The Impact of the First Galaxies on Cosmic Dawn and Reionization
• micrOMEGAs 6.0: N-component dark matter
• First Constraints from DAMIC-M on Sub-GeV Dark-Matter Particles Interacting with Electrons
• Bounds on Dark Matter annihilations from 21 cm data
• 21-cm Fluctuations from Charged Dark Matter
• Constraints on dark matter annihilation from CMB observations before Planck
• Constraining dark matter late-time energy injection: decays and p-wave annihilations
• DarkHistory: A code package for calculating modified cosmic ionization and thermal histories with dark matter and other exotic energy injections
• Bounds on Dark Matter decay from 21 cm line
• Long-Exposure NuSTAR Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter in the Galactic Halo
• Spectral distortion constraints on photon injection from low-mass decaying particles
• The cosmology of sub-MeV dark matter freeze-in
• Imprint of the seesaw mechanism on feebly interacting dark matter and the baryon asymmetry
• The Dark Side of the Littlest Seesaw: freeze-in, the two right-handed neutrino portal and leptogenesis-friendly fimpzillas
• Lyman-$\alpha$ Constraints on Cosmic Heating from Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• View FImP Miracle (by Scale Invariance) $\acute{\mathrm{a}}$ $\mathrm{la}$ Self-interaction
• Dark Matter from Freeze-In via the Neutrino Portal
• CMB and Lyman-$\alpha$ constraints on dark matter decays to photons
• 21cm signal sensitivity to dark matter decay
• 21cmfish: Fisher-matrix framework for fast parameter forecasts from the cosmic 21-cm signal
• Modeling early-universe energy injection with Dense Neural Networks

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Dark Matter Freeze-In and Small-Scale Observables: Novel Mass Bounds and Viable Particle Candidates
• Lyman-$\alpha$ limit on axion-like cold dark matter
• Sensitivity toward dark matter annihilation imprints on 21-cm signal with SKA-Low: A convolutional neural network approach
• Probing Non-Minimal Dark Sectors via the 21 cm Line at Cosmic Dawn
• Seasons of Dark Matter Freeze-In Shaped by the Weather of the Early Universe
• LHC-friendly freeze-in dark matter via Higgs portal