English

Subjecting dark matter candidates to the cluster test

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2017-10-05 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Galaxy clusters, employed by Zwicky to demonstrate the existence of dark matter, pose new stringent tests. If merging clusters demonstrate that dark matter is self-interacting with cross section σ/m2\sigma/m\sim 2 cm2^2/gr, MACHOs, primordial black holes and light axions that build MACHOs are ruled out as cluster dark matter. Recent strong lensing and X-ray gas data of the quite relaxed and quite spherical cluster A1835 allow to test the cases of dark matter with Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac distribution, next to Navarro-Frenck-White profiles. Fits to all these profiles are formally rejected at over 5σ5\sigma, except in the fermionic situation. The interpretation in terms of (nearly) Dirac neutrinos with mass of 1.610.30+0.191.61^{+0.19}_{-0.30} eV/c2c^2 is consistent with results on the cluster A1689, with the WMAP, Planck and DES dark matter fractions and with the nondetection of neutrinoless double β\beta-decay. The case will be tested in the 2018 KATRIN experiment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.01375,
  title  = {Subjecting dark matter candidates to the cluster test},
  author = {Theodorus Maria Nieuwenhuizen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.01375},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

5 pages latex, 1 figure