Dark plasmas in the nonlinear regime: constraints from particle-in-cell simulations
arXiv:2411.11958 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.111.095031
Abstract
If the dark sector possesses long-range self-interactions, these interactions can source dramatic collective instabilities even in astrophysical settings where the collisional mean free path is long. Here, we focus on the specific case of dark matter halos composed of a dark gauge sector undergoing a dissociative cluster merger. We study this by performing the first dedicated particle-in-cell plasma simulations of interacting dark matter streams, tracking the growth, formation, and saturation of instabilities through both the linear and nonlinear regimes. We find that these instabilities give rise to local (dark) electromagnetic inhomogeneities that serve as scattering sites, inducing an effective dynamic collisional cross-section. Mapping this effective cross-section onto existing results from large-scale simulations of the Bullet Cluster, we extend the limit on the dark charge-to-mass ratio by over ten orders of magnitude. Our results serve as a simple example of the rich phenomenology that may arise in a dark sector with long-range interactions and motivate future dedicated study of such ``dark plasmas.''
arXiv comment13 pages, 11 figures
References in corpus (39)
- A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter
- Dark Matter Self-interactions and Small Scale Structure
- Rotation Curves of Spiral Galaxies
- Constraints on the Self-Interaction Cross-Section of Dark Matter from Numerical Simulations of the Merging Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657-5
- Weak lensing mass reconstruction of the interacting cluster 1E0657-558: Direct evidence for the existence of dark matter
- A Textbook Example of a Bow Shock in the Merging Galaxy Cluster 1E0657-56
- SMILEI: a collaborative, open-source, multi-purpose particle-in-cell code for plasma simulation
- Hidden Charged Dark Matter
- Dark Matter and Dark Radiation
- The dark matter of gravitational lensing
- Double-Disk Dark Matter
- What does the Bullet Cluster tell us about self-interacting dark matter?
- The speed of the `bullet' in the merging galaxy cluster 1E0657-56
- Colliding clusters and dark matter self-interactions
- Long Term Evolution of Magnetic Turbulence in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Electron-Positron Plasmas
- Long-time evolution of magnetic fields in relativistic GRB shocks
- Make Dark Matter Charged Again
- 1E0657-56: A Contender for the Hottest Known Cluster of Galaxies
- The Dynamical Status of the Cluster of Galaxies 1E0657-56
- Collisionless shock formation, spontaneous electromagnetic fluctuations and streaming instabilities
- Searching For Dark Matter with Plasma Haloscopes
- The Bullet cluster at its best: weighing stars, gas and dark matter
- PIC Simulations of the Effect of Velocity Space Instabilities on Electron Viscosity and Thermal Conduction
- Electron Weibel Instability in Relativistic Counter-Streaming Plasmas with Flow-Aligned External Magnetic Fields
- Evidence for Dark Matter Self-Interactions via Collisionless Shocks in Cluster Mergers
- Nonlinear dynamics of the ion Weibel-filamentation instability: an analytical model for the evolution of the plasma and spectral properties
- Disruption of current filaments and isotropization of magnetic field in counter-streaming plasmas
- Dynamics of millicharged dark matter in supernova remnants
- Simulation study of the formation of a non-relativistic pair shock
- Long range dark matter self-interactions and plasma instabilities
- Stability analysis of a periodic system of relativistic current filaments
- Temperature-dependent Saturation of Weibel-type Instabilities in Counter-streaming Plasmas
- Simulations of Galaxy Cluster Collisions with a Dark Plasma Component
- Astrophysical Plasma Instabilities induced by Long-Range Interacting Dark Matter
- Slowdown of interpenetration of two counterpropagating plasma slab due to collective effects
- Collisionless shocks in self-interacting dark matter
- Modeling of axion and electromagnetic fields coupling in a particle-in-cell code
- Density jump for oblique collisionless shocks in pair plasmas: allowed solutions
- Plasma Constraints on the Millicharged Dark Matter