MeV dark matter and small scale structure
- Theoretical Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510 (United States)
- Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697 (United States)
- Phenomenology Institute, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (United States)
Weakly interacting massive particles with electroweak scale masses (neutralinos, etc.) remain in kinetic equilibrium with other particle species until temperatures approximately in the range of 10 MeV to 1 GeV, leading to the formation of dark matter substructure with masses as small as 10{sup -4}M{sub {center_dot}} to 10{sup -12}M{sub {center_dot}}. However, if dark matter consists of particles with MeV scale masses, as motivated by the observation of 511 keV emission from the galactic bulge, such particles are naturally expected to remain in kinetic equilibrium with the cosmic neutrino background until considerably later times. This would lead to a strong suppression of small scale structure with masses below about 10{sup 7}M{sub {center_dot}} to 10{sup 4}M{sub {center_dot}}. This cutoff scale has important implications for present and future searches for faint local group satellite galaxies and for the missing satellites problem. We also summarize current constraints on the MeV dark matter scenario.
- OSTI ID:
- 21027808
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 76, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.76.103515; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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