Strongest model-independent bound on the lifetime of Dark Matter
- Institut de Théorie des Phénomènes Physiques, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015, Lausanne (Switzerland)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare -- Sezione di Napoli, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, I-80126 Napoli (Italy)
Dark Matter is essential for structure formation in the late Universe so it must be stable on cosmological time scales. But how stable exactly? Only assuming decays into relativistic particles, we report an otherwise model independent bound on the lifetime of Dark Matter using current cosmological data. Since these decays affect only the low ℓ multipoles of the CMB, the Dark Matter lifetime is expected to correlate with the tensor-to-scalar ratio r as well as the curvature Ω{sub k}. We consider two models, including r and r+Ω{sub k} respectively, versus data from Planck, WMAP, WiggleZ and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, with or without the BICEP2 data (if interpreted in terms of primordial gravitational waves). This results in a lower bound on the lifetime of CDM given by 160 Gyr (without BICEP2) or 200 Gyr (with BICEP2) at 95% confidence level.
- OSTI ID:
- 22382081
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 12; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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