MeV Dark Matter and Small Scale Structure
WIMPs 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 {circle_dot}} to 10{sup -12} M{sub {circle_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 {circle_dot}} to 10{sup 4} M{sub {circle_dot}}. This cutoff scale has important implications for present and future searches for faint Local Group satellite galaxies and for the missing satellites problem.
- Research Organization:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- OSTI ID:
- 902874
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-PUB-07-064-A; arXiv eprint number arXiv:0704.2558; TRN: US0703009
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Effects of cold dark matter decoupling and pair annihilation on cosmological perturbations
A theory of dark matter