123 citations · 691 across the 20 of their papers we have counts for
22 papers
Re-examining the sensitivity of JWST to decaying axion dark matter
Caleb Gemmell, Christopher Dessert, Andrea Caputo +1
An eV-scale QCD axion comprising the observed dark matter (DM) abundance is expected to generate a photon line at infrared energies that would be observable or near-observable in d…
Freezing-in the Axiverse
Christopher Dessert, Soubhik Kumar, Joshua T. Ruderman
The presence of multiple light axions in the infrared is a generic feature of many ultraviolet (UV) scenarios. In many cases the number of axions is o…
Search for Axions in Magnetic White Dwarf Polarization at Lick and Keck Observatories
Joshua N. Benabou, Christopher Dessert, Kishore C. Patra +4
We present the most sensitive search to date for light axion-like particles with masses below a micro-eV, using spectropolarimetric data collected from the Lick and Keck Observator…
Search for Axions from Magnetic White Dwarfs with Chandra
Orion Ning, Christopher Dessert, Vi Hong +1
Low mass axion-like particles could be produced in abundance within the cores of hot, compact magnetic white dwarf (MWD) stars from electron bremsstrahlung and converted to detecta…
Sensitivity of JWST to eV-Scale Decaying Axion Dark Matter
Sandip Roy, Carlos Blanco, Christopher Dessert +2
The recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can resolve eV-scale emission lines arising from dark matter (DM) decay. We forecast the end-of-mission sensitivity to the d…
Was There a 3.5 keV Line?
Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster, Yujin Park +1
The 3.5 keV line is a purported emission line observed in galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the Milky Way whose origin is inconsistent with known atomic transitions and has previously…
Limits from the grave: resurrecting Hitomi for decaying dark matter and forecasting leading sensitivity for XRISM
Christopher Dessert, Orion Ning, Nicholas L. Rodd +1
The Hitomi X-ray satellite mission carried unique high-resolution spectrometers that were set to revolutionize the search for sterile neutrino dark matter (DM) by looking for narro…
Snowmass Theory Frontier: Astrophysics and Cosmology
Daniel Green, Joshua T. Ruderman, Benjamin R. Safdi +84
We summarize progress made in theoretical astrophysics and cosmology over the past decade and areas of interest for the coming decade. This Report is prepared as the TF09 "Astrophy…
Higgsino Dark Matter Confronts 14 years of Fermi Gamma Ray Data
Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster, Yujin Park +2
Thermal higgsino dark matter (DM), with mass around 1 TeV, is a well-motivated, minimal DM scenario that arises in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model. Higgsinos may na…
Upper limit on the axion-photon coupling from magnetic white dwarf polarization
Christopher Dessert, David Dunsky, Benjamin R. Safdi
Polarization measurements of thermal radiation from magnetic white dwarf (MWD) stars have been proposed as a probe of axion-photon mixing. The radiation leaving the surface of the…
Red-Giant Branch Stellar Cores as Macroscopic Dark Matter Detectors
Christopher Dessert, Zachary Johnson
We show that macroscopic dark matter (DM) impacts on the degenerate helium cores of red-giant branch (RGB) stars can ignite helium fusion via DM-baryon elastic scattering. The onse…
Upper Limit on the QCD Axion Mass from Isolated Neutron Star Cooling
Malte Buschmann, Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster +2
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may modify the cooling rates of neutron stars (NSs). The axions are produced within the NS cores from nucleon bremsstrahlung and, when the nu…
No evidence for axions from Chandra observation of magnetic white dwarf
Christopher Dessert, Andrew J. Long, Benjamin R. Safdi
Ultralight axions with axion-photon couplings GeV may resolve a number of astrophysical anomalies, such as unexpected ~TeV transpare…
A deep search for decaying dark matter with XMM-Newton blank-sky observations
Joshua W. Foster, Marius Kongsore, Christopher Dessert +4
Sterile neutrinos with masses in the keV range are well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model that could explain the observed neutrino masses while also making up the dark mat…
X-ray Searches for Axions from Super Star Clusters
Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster, Benjamin R. Safdi
Axions may be produced in abundance inside stellar cores and then convert into observable X-rays in the Galactic magnetic fields. We focus on the Quintuplet and Westerlund 1 super…
Systematics in the XENON1T data: the 15-keV anti-axion
Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster, Yonatan Kahn +1
The XENON1T collaboration has found an excess of electron recoil events in their Science Run 1 data below ~7 keV with a spectral shape consistent with that expected from a solar-ax…
Technical comment on the paper of Dessert et al. "The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5 keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations"
Alexey Boyarsky, Denys Malyshev, Oleg Ruchayskiy +1
An unidentified line at energy around 3.5 keV was detected in the spectra of dark matter-dominated objects. Recent work of Dessert et al. [1812.06976] used 30 Msec of XMM-Newton bl…
Axion Emission Can Explain a New Hard -ray Excess from Nearby Isolated Neutron Stars
Malte Buschmann, Raymond T. Co, Christopher Dessert +1
Axions may be produced thermally inside the cores of neutron stars (NSs), escape the stars due to their feeble interactions with matter, and subsequently convert into X-rays in the…
Hard X-ray Excess from the Magnificent Seven Neutron Stars
Christopher Dessert, Joshua W. Foster, Benjamin R. Safdi
We report significant hard X-ray excesses in the energy range 2-8 keV for two nearby isolated neutron stars RX J1856.6-3754 and RX J0420.0-5022. These neutron stars have previously…
X-ray Signatures of Axion Conversion in Magnetic White Dwarf Stars
Christopher Dessert, Andrew J. Long, Benjamin R. Safdi
White dwarf (WD) stars may radiate keV-energy axions produced in their stellar cores. This has been extensively studied as an extra channel by which WDs may cool, with some analyse…
The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5-keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations
Christopher Dessert, Nicholas L. Rodd, Benjamin R. Safdi
Observations of nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters have reported an unexpected X-ray emission line around 3.5 kilo-electron volts (keV). Proposals to explain this line include dec…
Addressing Astrophysical and Cosmological Problems With Secretly Asymmetric Dark Matter
Christopher Dessert, Can Kilic, Cynthia Trendafilova +1
We present a simple model of dark matter that can address astrophysical and cosmological puzzles across a wide range of scales. The model is an application of the Secretly Asymmetr…