Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2021
Volume 66, Number 5
Saturday–Tuesday, April 17–20, 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session X10: Dark Matter Constraints from SpaceLive
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Sponsoring Units: DAP Chair: Sophie Middleton, Caltech |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 10:45AM - 10:57AM Live |
X10.00001: Tightening NuSTAR Constraints on keV-Scale Sterile Neutrinos: Present and Future Brandon Roach, John Beacom, Shunsaku Horiuchi, Roman Krivonos, Kenny Ng, Kerstin Perez, Steve Rossland, Daniel Wik Sterile neutrinos with masses at the keV scale are a popular dark matter candidate, with a clear decay signature including a mono-energetic x-ray photon that can be investigated using existing x-ray telescopes. In particular, the large solid angle of the NuSTAR observatory for unfocused x-rays has led to world-leading sensitivity to the decays of sterile neutrinos in the mass range 10-50 keV, across a variety of astrophysical targets. I will describe our group's analysis of archival NuSTAR observations of the M31 galaxy (${\sim}$1.2 Ms) and dedicated high-latitude observations near the Galactic Center (${\sim}$190 ks); together, these reduce the size of the remaining parameter space for resonantly-produced sterile neutrinos by nearly one-third. Finally, I will discuss the impact of recent improvements in modeling the NuSTAR instrument background, particularly in the x-ray energy range 3-5 keV (sterile neutrino masses 6-10 keV), and the implications for future sterile-neutrino dark matter searches using NuSTAR data. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 10:57AM - 11:09AM Live |
X10.00002: Constraining Dark Matter Mass with Dark Energy Coupling Bound and COSMOMC Kevin Ludwick, Shreyashi Chakdar Quantum field theory considerations of a light dark energy scalar field coupled to a heavier dark matter field restrict the coupling to be small in general in order to control for radiative stability and long-range forces. We consider different types of possible fields and couplings for dark energy and dark matter, and we use cosmological data and COSMOMC to get bounds on the dark matter mass. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 11:09AM - 11:21AM Live |
X10.00003: Cosmological Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Matter Cara Giovanetti, Mariangela Lisanti, Hongwan Liu, Joshua Ruderman We present novel constraints on sub-GeV dark matter models involving a light particle $\chi$ and a $U(1)'$ dark photon mediator. Using measurements of $N_{\textrm{eff}}$ from the CMB and post-BBN abundances of deuterium and helium-4, we derive constraints on the mass $m_{\chi}$ of the dark matter particle, assuming an MeV-scale mediator mass. Depending on the model parameters, we find that values of $m_{\chi}$ below $\sim 8$-$10$ MeV produce a tension between the predicted values of these CMB and BBN parameters and their experimentally-determined values. We find that this constraint cannot be circumvented by simply adding additional degrees of freedom in the form of dark radiation. Finally, we compare these results to the sensitivities of existing and proposed direct detection experiments, and find an overlap between the regions of parameter space that many of these experiments will probe and the region of parameter space that is constrained by this analysis. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 11:21AM - 11:33AM Live |
X10.00004: X-Ray Searches for Decaying Dark Matter in Blank Sky Observations Joshua Foster Sterile neutrinos with keV-scale masses represent well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model that could explain the observed neutrino masses while also accounting for the cosmological dark matter (DM) abundance. DM sterile neutrinos may slowly decay into active neutrinos and photons, producing nearly monochromatic \textit{X}-ray emission that could be detected in astrophysical datasets. In this work, we use 547 Ms of data collected across the full sky by the MOS and PN instruments onboard the {\it XMM-Newton} observatory to search for sterile neutrino DM across the 5 keV to 16 keV mass range. We analyze background-subtracted data using parametric modeling of instrumental and known astrophysical lines alongside nonparametric modeling of continuum background contributions using Gaussian Processes. We find no evidence for unassociated X-ray lines, leading us to produce the strongest constraints on this DM scenario to-date. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 11:33AM - 11:45AM Live |
X10.00005: Sensitivities of ultra-high energy neutrino experiments to dark matter direct annihilation and decay to neutrinos Claire Guepin, Roberto Aloisio, Luis Anchordoqui, Austin Cummings, John Krizmanic, Mary Hall Reno, Tonia Venters The evidence of dark matter is compelling from Galactic to cosmological scales, but its nature remains elusive. Recent Fermi-LAT observations weaken the promising weakly interacting massive particle scenario, and alternative scenarios involving superheavy dark matter (SHDM), possibly coupled to neutrinos, are being considered. Ultra-high energy neutrino detectors can uniquely probe the properties of SHDM annihilating or decaying into neutrinos. In the mass range $m_\chi = 10^7-10^{15}\,{\rm GeV}$, we evaluate the sensitivities of the future observatories POEMMA and GRAND, compared with the ones of IceCube, Auger and ANITA, to dark matter thermally averaged annihilation cross section and dark matter lifetime. We show that a ground-based radio detector such as GRAND can achieve high sensitivities due to its high duty cycle in radio quiet areas. Space-based Cherenkov detectors such as POEMMA have the advantage of full-sky coverage and rapid slewing, enabling an optimized SHDM observation strategy focusing on the Galactic Center. Moreover, POEMMA’s fluorescence observation mode will achieve state-of-the-art sensitivity to SHDM properties. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 11:45AM - 11:57AM Live |
X10.00006: Targeted Likelihood-Free Inference of Dark Matter Substructure in Strongly-Lensed Galaxies Adam Coogan, Konstantin Karchev, Christoph Weniger The analysis of optical images of galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lensing systems can provide important information about the distribution of dark matter at small scales. However, the modeling and statistical analysis of these images is extraordinarily complex, bringing together source image and main lens reconstruction, hyper-parameter optimization, and the marginalization over small-scale structure realizations. We present here a new analysis pipeline that tackles these diverse challenges by bringing together many recent machine learning developments in one coherent approach, including variational inference, Gaussian processes, differentiable probabilistic programming, and neural likelihood-to-evidence ratio estimation. Our pipeline enables: (a) fast reconstruction of the source image and lens mass distribution, (b) variational estimation of uncertainties, (c) efficient optimization of source regularization and other hyperparameters, and (d) marginalization over stochastic model components like the distribution of substructure. We present here preliminary results that demonstrate the validity of our approach. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 11:57AM - 12:09PM Live |
X10.00007: Cosmic ray boosted dark matter at PROSPECT—theory and propagation Christopher Cappiello, Manoa Andriamirado, Bryce Littlejohn Despite the ever-increasing sensitivity of direct detection experiments to GeV-scale dark matter, these experiments rapidly lose sensitivity if dark matter is too light. However, if light dark matter can be accelerated to high kinetic energy, it could be detected by direct detection or even neutrino experiments, despite its low mass. One possible acceleration mechanism is the collision of dark matter with cosmic rays. We present the results of a search for cosmic ray boosted dark matter at the PROSPECT reactor antineutrino experiment, setting bounds on strongly interacting, sub-GeV dark matter. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 12:09PM - 12:21PM Live |
X10.00008: Cosmic ray Boosted Dark Matter at PROSPECT – Experimental Analysis Manoa Andriamirado, Christopher Cappiello, Bryce Littlejohn PROSPECT, the PRecision Oscillation and SPECTrum Experiment, is a reactor antineutrino experiment at a very short baseline. The PROSPECT detector consists of a segmented $^6$Li-doped liquid scintillator deployed at the ONRL High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) with minimal overburden ($<$ 1 m.w.e.). This location provides one of the shortest baselines for a high-statistics measurement of reactor antineutrinos and the opportunity to test hard-to-reach regions of dark matter phase space. This talk will describe the data analysis to search for boosted dark matter in the PROSPECT data. [Preview Abstract] |
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