Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2019). Dark matter microphysics and 21 cm observations. Phys. Rev. D, 99(2), 023522–12pp.
Abstract: Dark matter interactions with massless or very light standard model particles, as photons or neutrinos, may lead to a suppression of the matter power spectrum at small scales and of the number of low mass haloes. Bounds on the dark matter scattering cross section with light degrees of freedom in such interacting dark matter (IDM) scenarios have been obtained from e.g., early time cosmic microwave background physics and large scale structure observations. Here we scrutinize dark matter microphysics in light of the claimed 21 cm EDGES 78 MHz absorption signal. IDM is expected to delay the 21 cm absorption features due to collisional damping effects. We identify the astrophysical conditions under which the existing constraints on the dark matter scattering cross section could be largely improved due to the IDM imprint on the 21 cm signal, providing also an explicit comparison to the WDM scenario.
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2017). Warm dark matter and the ionization history of the Universe. Phys. Rev. D, 96(10), 103539–14pp.
Abstract: In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of m(X) > 1.3 keV, or m(s) > 5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level.
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., Villanueva-Domingo, P., & Witte, S. J. (2020). Variations in fundamental constants at the cosmic dawn. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 026–25pp.
Abstract: The observation of space-time variations in fundamental constants would provide strong evidence for the existence of new light degrees of freedom in the theory of Nature. Robustly constraining such scenarios requires exploiting observations that span different scales and probe the state of the Universe at different epochs. In the context of cosmology, both the cosmic microwave background and the Lyman-a forest have proven to be powerful tools capable of constraining variations in electromagnetism, however at the moment there do not exist cosmological probes capable of bridging the gap between recombination and reionization. In the near future, radio telescopes will attempt to measure the 21 cm transition of neutral hydrogen during the epochs of reionization and the cosmic dawn (and potentially the tail end of the dark ages); being inherently sensitive to electromagnetic phenomena, these experiments will offer a unique perspective on space-time variations of the fine-structure constant and the electron mass. We show here that large variations in these fundamental constants would produce features on the 21 cm power spectrum that may be distinguishable from astrophysical uncertainties. Furthermore, we forecast the sensitivity for the Square Kilometer Array, and show that the 21 cm power spectrum may be able to constrain variations at the level of O(10(-3)).
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Rigolin, S. (2012). Biases on cosmological parameters by general relativity effects. Phys. Rev. D, 85(2), 023511–12pp.
Abstract: General relativistic corrections to the galaxy power spectrum appearing at the horizon scale, if neglected, may induce biases on the measured values of the cosmological parameters. In this paper, we study the impact of general relativistic effects on non standard cosmologies such as scenarios with a time dependent dark energy equation of state, with a coupling between the dark energy and the dark matter fluids or with non-Gaussianities. We then explore whether general relativistic corrections affect future constraints on cosmological parameters in the case of a constant dark energy equation of state and of non-Gaussianities. We find that relativistic corrections on the power spectrum are not expected to affect the foreseen errors on the cosmological parameters nor to induce large biases on them.
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Lopez Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Panotopoulos, G. (2010). Higher-order coupled quintessence. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 123525–7pp.
Abstract: We study a coupled quintessence model in which the interaction with the dark-matter sector is a function of the quintessence potential. Such a coupling can arise from a field dependent mass term for the dark-matter field. The dynamical analysis of a standard quintessence potential coupled with the interaction explored here shows that the system possesses a late-time accelerated attractor. In light of these results, we perform a fit to the most recent Supernovae Ia, Cosmic Microwave Background, and Baryon Acoustic Oscillation data sets. Constraints arising from weak equivalence principle violation arguments are also discussed.
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