Decaying dark matter: The case for a deep X-ray observation of Draco

Mark R. Lovell; Gianfranco Bertone; Alexey Boyarsky; Adrian Jenkins; Oleg Ruchayskiy

doi:10.1093/mnras/stv963

Decaying dark matter: The case for a deep X-ray observation of Draco

Mark R. Lovell^*, Gianfranco Bertone, Alexey Boyarsky, Adrian Jenkins, Oleg Ruchayskiy

^*Corresponding author for this work

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent studies of M31, the Galactic Centre (GC), and galaxy clusters have made tentative detections of an X-ray line at ~3.5 keV that could be produced by decaying dark matter. We use high-resolution simulations of the Aquarius project to predict the likely amplitude of the X-ray decay flux observed in the GC relative to that observed in M31, and also of the GC relative to other parts of the Milky Way halo and to dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We show that the reported detections from M31 and the GC are compatible with each other, and with upper limits arising from high galactic latitude observations, and imply a decay time τ ~ 10²⁸ s. We argue that this interpretation can be tested with deep observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies: in 95 per cent of our mock observations, a 1.3 Ms pointed observation of Draco with XMM-Newton will enable us to discover or rule out at the 3σ level an X-ray feature from dark matter decay at 3.5 keV, for decay times τ < 0.8 × 10²⁸ s.

Original language	English
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	451
Issue number	2
Pages (from-to)	1573-1585
Number of pages	13
ISSN	0035-8711
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv963
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2015
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Dark matter

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title = "Decaying dark matter: The case for a deep X-ray observation of Draco",

abstract = "Recent studies of M31, the Galactic Centre (GC), and galaxy clusters have made tentative detections of an X-ray line at ~3.5 keV that could be produced by decaying dark matter. We use high-resolution simulations of the Aquarius project to predict the likely amplitude of the X-ray decay flux observed in the GC relative to that observed in M31, and also of the GC relative to other parts of the Milky Way halo and to dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We show that the reported detections from M31 and the GC are compatible with each other, and with upper limits arising from high galactic latitude observations, and imply a decay time τ ~ 1028 s. We argue that this interpretation can be tested with deep observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies: in 95 per cent of our mock observations, a 1.3 Ms pointed observation of Draco with XMM-Newton will enable us to discover or rule out at the 3σ level an X-ray feature from dark matter decay at 3.5 keV, for decay times τ < 0.8 × 1028 s.",

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author = "Lovell, {Mark R.} and Gianfranco Bertone and Alexey Boyarsky and Adrian Jenkins and Oleg Ruchayskiy",

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T1 - Decaying dark matter

T2 - The case for a deep X-ray observation of Draco

AU - Lovell, Mark R.

AU - Bertone, Gianfranco

AU - Boyarsky, Alexey

AU - Jenkins, Adrian

AU - Ruchayskiy, Oleg

PY - 2015/1/1

Y1 - 2015/1/1

N2 - Recent studies of M31, the Galactic Centre (GC), and galaxy clusters have made tentative detections of an X-ray line at ~3.5 keV that could be produced by decaying dark matter. We use high-resolution simulations of the Aquarius project to predict the likely amplitude of the X-ray decay flux observed in the GC relative to that observed in M31, and also of the GC relative to other parts of the Milky Way halo and to dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We show that the reported detections from M31 and the GC are compatible with each other, and with upper limits arising from high galactic latitude observations, and imply a decay time τ ~ 1028 s. We argue that this interpretation can be tested with deep observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies: in 95 per cent of our mock observations, a 1.3 Ms pointed observation of Draco with XMM-Newton will enable us to discover or rule out at the 3σ level an X-ray feature from dark matter decay at 3.5 keV, for decay times τ < 0.8 × 1028 s.

AB - Recent studies of M31, the Galactic Centre (GC), and galaxy clusters have made tentative detections of an X-ray line at ~3.5 keV that could be produced by decaying dark matter. We use high-resolution simulations of the Aquarius project to predict the likely amplitude of the X-ray decay flux observed in the GC relative to that observed in M31, and also of the GC relative to other parts of the Milky Way halo and to dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We show that the reported detections from M31 and the GC are compatible with each other, and with upper limits arising from high galactic latitude observations, and imply a decay time τ ~ 1028 s. We argue that this interpretation can be tested with deep observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies: in 95 per cent of our mock observations, a 1.3 Ms pointed observation of Draco with XMM-Newton will enable us to discover or rule out at the 3σ level an X-ray feature from dark matter decay at 3.5 keV, for decay times τ < 0.8 × 1028 s.

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JO - Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices

JF - Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices

IS - 2

ER -

Decaying dark matter: The case for a deep X-ray observation of Draco

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Keywords

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