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Witte, S., Villanueva-Domingo, P., Gariazzo, S., Mena, O., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2018). EDGES result versus CMB and low-redshift constraints on ionization histories. Phys. Rev. D, 97(10), 103533–8pp.
Abstract: We examine the results from the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature (EDGES), which has recently claimed the detection of a strong absorption in the 21 cm hyperfine transition line of neutral hydrogen, at redshifts demarcating the early stages of star formation. More concretely, we study the compatibility of the shape of the EDGES absorption profile, centered at a redshift of z similar to 17.2, with measurements of the reionization optical depth, the Gunn-Peterson optical depth, and Lyman-alpha emission from star-forming galaxies, for a variety of possible reionization models within the standard ACDM framework (that is, a Universe with a cosmological constant. and cold dark matter CDM). When, conservatively, we only try to accommodate the location of the absorption dip, we identify a region in the parameter space of the astrophysical parameters that successfully explains all of the aforementioned observations. However, one of the most abnormal features of the EDGES measurement is the absorption amplitude, which is roughly a factor of 2 larger than the maximum allowed value in the ACDM framework. We point out that the simple considered astrophysical models that produce the largest absorption amplitudes are unable to explain the depth of the dip and of reproducing the observed shape of the absorption profile.
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Garani, R., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2022). Evaporation of dark matter from celestial bodies. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 042–53pp.
Abstract: Scatterings of galactic dark matter (DM) particles with the constituents of celestial bodies could result in their accumulation within these objects. Nevertheless, the finite temperature of the medium sets a minimum mass, the evaporation mass, that DM particles must have in order to remain trapped. DM particles below this mass are very likely to scatter to speeds higher than the escape velocity, so they would be kicked out of the capturing object and escape. Here, we compute the DM evaporation mass for all spherical celestial bodies in hydrostatic equilibrium, spanning the mass range [10(-)(10) – 10(2)] M-circle dot, for constant scattering cross sections and s-wave annihilations. We illustrate the critical importance of the exponential tail of the evaporation rate, which has not always been appreciated in recent literature, and obtain a robust result: for the geometric value of the scattering cross section and for interactions with nucleons, at the local galactic position, the DM evaporation mass for all spherical celestial bodies in hydrostatic equilibrium is approximately given by E-c/T-chi similar to 30, where E-c is the escape energy of DM particles at the core of the object and T-chi is their temperature. In that case, the minimum value of the DM evaporation mass is obtained for super-Jupiters and brown dwarfs, m(ev)(ap) similar or equal to 0.7 GeV. For other values of the scattering cross section, the DM evaporation mass only varies by a factor smaller than three within the range 10(-41) cm(2) <= sigma(p) <= 10(-31) cm(2), where sigma(p) is the spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering cross section. Its dependence on parameters such as the galactic DM density and velocity, or the scattering and annihilation cross sections is only logarithmic, and details on the density and temperature profiles of celestial bodies have also a small impact.
Keywords: dark matter detectors; dark matter theory; massive stars; stars
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Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Vincent, A. C. (2014). Flavor Composition of the High-Energy Neutrino Events in IceCube. Phys. Rev. Lett., 113(9), 091103–5pp.
Abstract: The IceCube experiment has recently reported the observation of 28 high-energy (> 30 TeV) neutrino events, separated into 21 showers and 7 muon tracks, consistent with an extraterrestrial origin. In this Letter, we compute the compatibility of such an observation with possible combinations of neutrino flavors with relative proportion (alpha(e:)alpha(mu):alpha tau)(circle plus). Although the 7: 21 track-to-shower ratio is naively favored for the canonical (1:1:1)(circle plus) at Earth, this is not true once the atmospheric muon and neutrino backgrounds are properly accounted for. We find that, for an astrophysical neutrino E-2 energy spectrum, (1:1:1)(circle plus). at Earth is disfavored at 81% C. L. If this proportion does not change, 6 more years of data would be needed to exclude (1:1:1)(circle plus) at Earth at 3 sigma C.L. Indeed, with the recently released 3-yr data, that flavor composition is excluded at 92% C. L. The best fit is obtained for (1:0:0)(circle plus). at Earth, which cannot be achieved from any flavor ratio at sources with averaged oscillations during propagation. If confirmed, this result would suggest either a misunderstanding of the expected background events or a misidentification of tracks as showers, or even more compellingly, some exotic physics which deviates from the standard scenario.
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Farzan, Y., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2019). Flavor of cosmic neutrinos preserved by ultralight dark matter. Phys. Rev. D, 99(5), 051702–8pp.
Abstract: Within the standard propagation scenario, the flavor ratios of high-energy cosmic neutrinos at neutrino telescopes are expected to be around the democratic benchmark resulting from hadronic sources, (1/3:1/3:1/3)(circle plus). We show how the coupling of neutrinos to an ultralight dark matter complex scalar field would induce an effective neutrino mass that could lead to adiabatic neutrino propagation. This would result in the preservation at the detector of the production flavor composition of neutrinos at sources. This effect could lead to flavor ratios at detectors well outside the range predicted by the standard scenario of averaged oscillations. We also present an electroweak-invariant model that would lead to the required effective interaction between neutrinos and dark matter.
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Moline, A., Ibarra, A., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2015). Future sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to dark matter annihilations from the cosmic diffuse neutrino signal. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 005–34pp.
Abstract: Cosmological observations and cold dark matter N-body simulations indicate that our Universe is populated by numerous halos, where dark matter particles annihilate, potentially producing Standard Model particles. In this paper we calculate the contribution to the diffuse neutrino background from dark matter annihilations in halos at all redshifts and we estimate the future sensitivity to the annihilation cross section of neutrino telescopes such as IceCube or ANTARES. We consider various parametrizations to describe the internal halo properties and for the halo mass function in order to bracket the theoretical uncertainty in the limits from the modeling of the cosmological annihilation flux. We find that observations of the cosmic diffuse neutrino flux at large angular distances from the galactic center lead to constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross section which are complementary to ( and for some extrapolations of the astrophysical parameters, better than) those stemming from observations of the Milky Way halo, especially for neutrino telescopes not pointing directly to the Milky Way center, as is the case of IceCube.
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