Sensitivity of JWST to eV-Scale Decaying Axion Dark Matter

Journal Article · 17 February 2025 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.071003 · OSTI ID:2519708

Roy, Sandip ; Blanco, Carlos ; Dessert, Christopher ; Prabhu, Anirudh ; Temim, Tea

The recently launched James Webb Space Telescope can resolve eV-scale emission lines arising from dark matter decay. We forecast the end-of-mission sensitivity to the decay of axions, a leading dark matter candidate, in the Milky Way using the blank-sky observations expected during standard operations. Searching for unassociated emission lines will constrain axions in the mass range 0.18 to 2.6 eV with axion-photon couplings $g_{a\gamma \gamma }\gtrsim 5.5\times {10}^{-12}{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$ . In particular, these results will constrain nucleophobic QCD axions to masses $\lesssim 0.2\mathrm{eV}$ . Published by the American Physical Society 2025

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0007968
• OSTI ID: 2519708
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 134; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Publisher: American Physical SocietyCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English