The Nature of Dark Matter

Abstract

Dark matter has been recognized as an essential part of matter for over 70 years now, and many suggestions have been made, what it could be. Most of these ideas have centered on Cold Dark Matter, particles that are expected in extensions of standard particle physics, such as supersymmetry. Here we explore the concept that dark matter is sterile neutrinos, a concept that is commonly referred to as Warm Dark Matter. Such particles have keV masses, and decay over a very long time, much longer than the Hubble time. In their decay they produce X-ray photons which modify the ionization balance in the early universe, increasing the fraction of molecular Hydrogen, and thus help early star formation. Sterile neutrinos may also help to understand the baryon-asymmetry, the pulsar kicks, the early growth of black holes, the minimum mass of dwarf spheroidal galaxies, as well as the shape of dark matter halos. As soon as all these tests have been quantitative in its various parameters, we may focus on the creation mechanism of these particles, and could predict the strength of the sharp X-ray emission line, expected from any large dark matter assembly. A measurement of this X-ray emission line would be definitive proof for the existence of may be called weakly interacting neutrinos, or WINs.

12 pages, To be published in Proceedings of the International School of Astrophysics at Ultra-high Energies, 20-27 June 2006, Erice, Sicily, Italy

References in corpus (23)

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• The $\nu$MSM, Dark Matter and Neutrino Masses
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• Can sterile neutrinos be the dark matter?
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• Can sterile neutrinos be ruled out as warm dark matter candidates?
• Opening a new window for warm dark matter
• Where to find a dark matter sterile neutrino?
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• Relic keV sterile neutrinos and reionization
• Production and Evolution of Perturbations of Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
• Early Structure Formation and Reionization in a Warm Dark Matter Cosmology
• Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
• Linear Cosmological Structure Limits on Warm Dark Matter
• Restrictions on parameters of sterile neutrino dark matter from observations of galaxy clusters
• Cosmological Lepton Asymmetry, Primordial Nucleosynthesis, and Sterile Neutrinos
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• Fast Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxies
• Observed Properties of Dark Matter on Small Spatial Scales