Dark Matter Haloes and Subhaloes

Massive Galaxy Clusters Like El Gordo Hint at Primordial Quantum Diffusion

It is generally assumed within the standard cosmological model that initial density perturbations are Gaussian at all scales. However, primordial quantum diffusion unavoidably generates non-Gaussian, exponential tails in the distribution of inflationary perturbations. These exponential tails have direct consequences for the formation of collapsed structures in the Universe, as has been studied in the context of primordial black holes. We show that these tails also affect the very-large-scale structures, making heavy clusters like "El Gordo," or large voids like the one associated with the cosmic microwave background cold spot, more probable. We compute the halo mass function and cluster abundance as a function of redshift in the presence of exponential tails. We find that quantum diffusion generically enlarges the number of heavy clusters and depletes subhalos, an effect that cannot be captured by the famed f_{NL} corrections. These late-Universe signatures could, thus, be fingerprints of quantum dynamics during inflation that should be incorporated in N-body simulations and checked against astrophysical data.

The Cusp–Core Problem in Gas-Poor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies

This review deals with the inconsistency of inner dark matter density profiles in dwarf galaxies, known as the cusp–core problem. In particular, we aim to focus on gas-poor dwarf galaxies. One of the most promising solutions to this cold dark matter small-scale issue is the stellar feedback, but it seems to be only designed for gas-rich dwarfs. However, in the regime of classical dwarfs, this core mechanism becomes negligible. Therefore, it is required to find solutions without invoking these baryonic processes as dark matter cores tend to persist even for these dwarfs, which are rather dark-matter-dominated. Here, we have presented two categories of solutions. One consists of creating dark matter cores from cusps within cold dark matter by altering the dark matter potential via perturbers. The second category gathers solutions that depict the natural emergence of dark matter cores in alternative theories. Given the wide variety of solutions, it becomes necessary to identify which mechanism dominates in the central region of galaxies by finding observational signatures left by them in order to highlight the true nature of dark matter.

Diurnal Effect of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Boosted by Cosmic Rays

We point out a new type of diurnal effect for the cosmic ray boosted dark matter (DM). The DM-nucleon interactions not only allow the direct detection of DM with nuclear recoils but also allow cosmic rays to scatter with and boost the nonrelativistic DM to higher energies. If the DM-nuclei scattering cross sections are sufficiently large, the DM flux is attenuated as it propagates through the Earth, leading to a strong diurnal modulation. This diurnal modulation provides another prominent signature for the direct detection of boosted sub-GeV DM, in addition to signals with higher recoil energy.

Status, Challenges and Directions in Indirect Dark Matter Searches

Indirect searches for dark matter are based on detecting an anomalous flux of photons, neutrinos or cosmic-rays produced in annihilations or decays of dark matter candidates gravitationally accumulated in heavy cosmological objects, like galaxies, the Sun or the Earth. Additionally, evidence for dark matter that can also be understood as indirect can be obtained from early universe probes, like fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background temperature, the primordial abundance of light elements or the Hydrogen 21-cm line. The techniques needed to detect these different signatures require very different types of detectors: Air shower arrays, gamma- and X-ray telescopes, neutrino telescopes, radio telescopes or particle detectors in balloons or satellites. While many of these detectors were not originally intended to search for dark matter, they have proven to be unique complementary tools for direct search efforts. In this review we summarize the current status of indirect searches for dark matter, mentioning also the challenges and limitations that these techniques encounter.

Constraints to Dark Matter Annihilation from High-Latitude HAWC Unidentified Sources

The Λ CDM cosmological framework predicts the existence of thousands of subhalos in our own Galaxy not massive enough to retain baryons and become visible. Yet, some of them may outshine in gamma rays provided that the dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which would self-annihilate and would appear as unidentified gamma-ray sources (unIDs) in gamma-ray catalogs. Indeed, unIDs have proven to be competitive targets for dark matter searches with gamma rays. In this work, we focus on the three high-latitude ( | b | ≥ 10 ) sources present in the 2HWC catalog of the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory with no clear associations at other wavelengths. Indeed, only one of these sources, 2HWC J1040+308, is found to be above the HAWC detection threshold when considering 760 days of data, i.e., a factor 1.5 more exposure time than in the original 2HWC catalog. Other gamma-ray instruments, such as Fermi-LAT or VERITAS at lower energies, do not detect the source. Also, this unID is reported as spatially extended, making it even more interesting in a dark matter search context. While waiting for more data that may shed further light on the nature of this source, we set competitive upper limits on the annihilation cross section by comparing this HAWC unID to expectations based on state-of-the-art N-body cosmological simulations of the Galactic subhalo population. We find these constraints to be particularly competitive for heavy WIMPs, i.e., masses above ∼25 (40) TeV in the case of the b b ¯ ( τ + τ − ) annihilation channel, reaching velocity-averaged cross section values of 2 × 10 − 25 ( 5 × 10 − 25 ) cm 3 ·s − 1 . Although far from testing the thermal relic cross section value, the obtained limits are independent and nicely complementary to those from radically different DM analyses and targets, demonstrating once again the high potential of this DM search approach.

Gamma-Ray Sensitivity to Dark Matter Subhalo Modelling at High Latitudes

Searches for “dark” subhaloes in gamma-ray point-like source catalogues are among promising strategies for indirect dark matter detection. Such a search is nevertheless affected by uncertainties related, on the one hand, to the modelling of the dark matter subhalo distribution in Milky-Way-like galaxies, and, on the other hand, to the sensitivity of gamma-ray instruments to the dark matter subhalo signals. In the present work, we assess the detectability of dark matter subhaloes in Fermi-LAT catalogues, taking into accounts uncertainties associated with the modelling of the galactic subhalo population. We use four different halo models bracketing a large set of uncertainties. For each model, adopting an accurate detection threshold of the LAT to dark matter subhalo signals and comparing model predictions with the number of unassociated point-sources in Fermi-LAT catalogues, we derive upper limits on the annihilation cross section as a function of dark matter mass. Our results show that, even in the best-case scenario (i.e., DMonly subhalo model), which does not include tidal disruption from baryons, the limits on the dark matter parameter space are less stringent than current gamma-ray limits from dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Comparing the results obtained with the different subhalo models, we find that baryonic effects on the subhalo population are significant and lead to dark matter constraints that are less stringent by a factor of ∼2 to ∼5. This uncertainty comes from the unknown resilience of dark matter subhaloes to tidal disruption.