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Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., Villanueva-Domingo, P., & Witte, S. J. (2019). Constraining the primordial black hole abundance with 21-cm cosmology. Phys. Rev. D, 100(4), 043540–23pp.
Abstract: The discoveries of a number of binary black hole mergers by LIGO and VIRGO have reinvigorated the interest that primordial black holes (PBHs) of tens of solar masses could contribute non-negligibly to the dark matter energy density. Should even a small population of PBHs with masses greater than or similar to O(M-circle dot) exist, they could profoundly impact the properties of the intergalactic medium and provide insight into novel processes at work in the early Universe. We demonstrate here that observations of the 21-cm transition in neutral hydrogen during the epochs of reionization and cosmic dawn will likely provide one of the most stringent tests of solar mass PBHs. In the context of 21-cm cosmology, PBHs give rise to three distinct observable effects: (i) the modification to the primordial power spectrum (and thus also the halo mass function) induced by Poisson noise, (ii) a uniform heating and ionization of the intergalactic medium via x-rays produced during accretion, and (iii) a local modification to the temperature and density of the ambient medium surrounding isolated PBHs. Using a four-parameter astrophysical model, we show that experiments like SKA and HERA could potentially improve upon existing constraints derived using observations of the cosmic microwave background by more than 1 order of magnitude.
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Raj, N., Takhistov, V., & Witte, S. J. (2020). Presupernova neutrinos in large dark matter direct detection experiments. Phys. Rev. D, 101(4), 043008–10pp.
Abstract: The next Galactic core-collapse supernova (SN) is a highly anticipated observational target for neutrino telescopes. However, even prior to collapse, massive dying stars shine copiously in “pre-supernova” (pre-SN) neutrinos, which can potentially act as efficient SN warning alarms and provide novel information about the very last stages of stellar evolution. We explore the sensitivity to pre-SN neutrinos of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments, which, unlike dedicated neutrino telescopes, take full advantage of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. We find that argon-based detectors with target masses of O(100)tons (i.e., comparable in size to the proposed ARGO experiment) operating at sub-keV thresholds can detect O(10-100) pre-SN neutrinos coming from a source at a characteristic distance of similar to 200 pc, such as Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis). Large-scale xenon-based experiments with similarly low thresholds could also be sensitive to pre-SN neutrinos. For a Betelgeuse-type source, large-scale dark matter experiments could provide a SN warning siren similar to 10 hours prior to the explosion. We also comment on the complementarity of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments and neutrino telescopes in the understanding of core-collapse SN.
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Escudero, M., & Witte, S. J. (2020). A CMB search for the neutrino mass mechanism and its relation to the Hubble tension. Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(4), 294–10pp.
Abstract: The majoron, a pseudo-Goldstone boson arising from the spontaneous breaking of global lepton number, is a generic feature of many models intended to explain the origin of the small neutrino masses. In this work, we investigate potential imprints in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) arising from massive majorons, should they thermalize with neutrinos after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis via inverse neutrino decays. We show that Planck2018 measurements of the CMB are currently sensitive to neutrino-majoron couplings as small as lambda similar to 10-13, which if interpreted in the context of the type-I seesaw mechanism correspond to a lepton number symmetry breaking scale vL similar to O(100)GeV Additionally, we identify parameter space for which the majoron-neutrino interactions, collectively with an extra contribution to the effective number of relativistic species Neff, can ameliorate the outstanding H0 tension.
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Caputo, A., Regis, M., Taoso, M., & Witte, S. J. (2019). Detecting the stimulated decay of axions at radio frequencies. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 027–22pp.
Abstract: Assuming axion-like particles account for the entirety of the dark matter in the Universe, we study the possibility of detecting their decay into photons at radio frequencies. We discuss different astrophysical targets, such as dwarf spheroidal galaxies, the Galactic Center and halo, and galaxy clusters. The presence of an ambient radiation field leads to a stimulated enhancement of the decay rate; depending on the environment and the mass of the axion, the effect of stimulated emission may amplify the photon flux by serval orders of magnitude. For axion-photon couplings allowed by astrophysical and laboratory constraints (and possibly favored by stellar cooling), we find the signal to be within the reach of next-generation radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometer Array.
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Escudero, M., Hooper, D., & Witte, S. J. (2017). Updated collider and direct detection constraints on Dark Matter models for the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 038–21pp.
Abstract: Utilizing an exhaustive set of simplified models, we revisit dark matter scenarios potentially capable of generating the observed Galactic Center gamma-ray excess, updating constraints from the LUX and PandaX- II experiments, as well as from the LHC and other colliders. We identify a variety of pseudoscalar mediated models that remain consistent with all constraints. In contrast, dark matter candidates which annihilate through a spin-1 mediator are ruled out by direct detection constraints unless the mass of the mediator is near an annihilation resonance, or the mediator has a purely vector coupling to the dark matter and a purely axial coupling to Standard Model fermions. All scenarios in which the dark matter annihilates throught-channel processes are now ruled out by a combination of the constraints from LUX/ PandaX-II and the LHC.
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