|
|
Vincent, A. C., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Mena, O. (2016). Analysis of the 4-year IceCube high-energy starting events. Phys. Rev. D, 94(2), 023009–18pp.
Abstract: After four years of data taking, the IceCube neutrino telescope has detected 54 high-energy starting events (HESE, or contained-vertex events) with deposited energies above 20 TeV. They represent the first detection of high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos and, therefore, the first step in neutrino astronomy. To study the energy, flavor, and isotropy of the astrophysical neutrino flux arriving at Earth, we perform different analyses of two different deposited energy intervals, [10 TeV-10 PeV] and [60 TeV-10 PeV]. We first consider an isotropic unbroken power-law spectrum and constrain its shape, normalization, and flavor composition. Our results are in agreement with the preliminary IceCube results, although we obtain a slightly softer spectrum. We also find that current data are not sensitive to a possible neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry in the astrophysical flux. Then, we show that although a two-component power-law model leads to a slightly better fit, it does not represent a significant improvement with respect to a single power-law flux. Finally, we analyze the possible existence of a north-south asymmetry, hinted at by the combination of the HESE sample with the throughgoing muon data. If we use only HESE data, the scarce statistics from the Northern Hemisphere does not allow us to reach any conclusive answer, which indicates that the HESE sample alone is not driving the potential north-south asymmetry.
|
|
|
|
Vincent, A. C., Fernandez Martinez, E., Hernandez, P., Mena, O., & Lattanzi, M. (2015). Revisiting cosmological bounds on sterile neutrinos. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 006–23pp.
Abstract: We employ state-of-the art cosmological observables including supernova surveys and BAO information to provide constraints on the mass and mixing angle of a non-resonantly produced sterile neutrino species, showing that cosmology can effectively rule out sterile neutrinos which decay between BBN and the present day. The decoupling of an additional heavy neutrino species can modify the time dependence of the Universe's expansion between BBN and recombination and, in extreme cases, lead to an additional matter-dominated period; while this could naively lead to a younger Universe with a larger Hubble parameter, it could later be compensated by the extra radiation expected in the form of neutrinos from sterile decay. However, recombination-era observables including the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the shift parameter R-CMB and the sound horizon r(s) from Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) severely constrain this scenario. We self-consistently include the full time-evolution of the coupled sterile neutrino and standard model sectors in an MCMC, showing that if decay occurs after BBN, the sterile neutrino is essentially bounded by the constraint sin(2) theta less than or similar to 0.026(m(s)/eV)(-2).
|
|
|
|
Villanueva-Domingo, P., Mena, O., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2021). A Brief Review on Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter. Front. Astron. Space Sci., 8, 681084–10pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) represent a natural candidate for one of the components of the dark matter (DM) in the Universe. In this review, we shall discuss the basics of their formation, abundance and signatures. Some of their characteristic signals are examined, such as the emission of particles due to Hawking evaporation and the accretion of the surrounding matter, effects which could leave an impact in the evolution of the Universe and the formation of structures. The most relevant probes capable of constraining their masses and population are discussed.
|
|
|
|
Villanueva-Domingo, P., Mena, O., & Miralda-Escude, J. (2020). Maximum amplitude of the high-redshift 21-cm absorption feature. Phys. Rev. D, 101(8), 083502–8pp.
Abstract: We examine the maximum possible strength of the global 21-cm absorption dip on the cosmic background radiation at high-redshift caused by the atomic intergalactic medium, when the Lyman-alpha coupling is maximum, assuming no exotic cooling mechanisms from interactions with dark matter. This maximum absorption is limited by three inevitable factors that need to be accounted for: (a) heating by energy transferred from the cosmic background radiation to the hydrogen atoms via 21-cm transitions, dubbed as 21-cm heating; (b) Ly alpha heating by scatterings of Ly alpha photons from the first stars; (c) the impact of the expected density fluctuations in the intergalactic gas in standard cold dark matter theory, which reduces the mean 21-cm absorption signal. Inclusion of this third novel effect reduces the maximum global 21-cm absorption by similar to 10%. Overall, the three effects studied here reduce the 21-cm global absorption by similar to 20% at z similar or equal to 17.
|
|
|
|
Villanueva-Domingo, P., Gnedin, N. Y., & Mena, O. (2018). Warm Dark Matter and Cosmic Reionization. Astrophys. J., 852(2), 139–7pp.
Abstract: In models with dark matter made of particles with keV masses, such as a sterile neutrino, small-scale density perturbations are suppressed, delaying the period at which the lowest mass galaxies are formed and therefore shifting the reionization processes to later epochs. In this study, focusing on Warm Dark Matter (WDM) with masses close to its present lower bound, i.e., around the 3. keV region, we derive constraints from galaxy luminosity functions, the ionization history and the Gunn-Peterson effect. We show that even if star formation efficiency in the simulations is adjusted to match the observed UV galaxy luminosity functions in both CDM and WDM models, the full distribution of Gunn-Peterson optical depth retains the strong signature of delayed reionization in the WDM model. However, until the star formation and stellar feedback model used in modern galaxy formation simulations is constrained better, any conclusions on the nature of dark matter derived from reionization observables remain model-dependent.
|
|
