Related papers: WIMP annihilation effects on primordial star forma…
The dark matter distribution on small scales may depend on the the properties of the first generation of dark matter halos to form, which is in turn determined by the microphysics of the dark matter particles. We overview the microphysics…
WIMP direct detection experiments are just reaching the sensitivity required to detect galactic dark matter in the form of neutralinos. Data from these experiments are usually analysed under the simplifying assumption that the Milky Way…
The first stars to form in the Universe may be powered by the annihilation of weakly interacting dark matter particles. These so-called dark stars, if observed, may give us a clue about the nature of dark matter. Here we examine which…
We consider dark matter consisting of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and revisit in detail its thermal evolution in the early universe, with a particular focus on models where the annihilation rate is enhanced by the…
Observations of the redshifted 21 cm line from neutral hydrogen will open a new window on the early Universe. By influencing the thermal and ionization history of the intergalactic medium (IGM), annihilating dark matter (DM) can leave a…
The formation of the first stars in the high-redshift Universe is a sensitive probe of the small-scale, particle physics nature of dark matter (DM). We carry out cosmological simulations of primordial star formation in ultra-light,…
We present results of cosmological N-body hydrodynamic chemistry simulations of primordial structure growth and evolution in a scenario with warm dark matter (WDM) having a mass of 3 keV (thermal relic) and compare with a model consisting…
The first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe may be Dark Stars, powered by dark matter heating rather than by fusion. Weakly interacting massive particles, which are their own antiparticles, can annihilate and provide…
In order to constrain the initial mass function (IMF) of the first generation of stars (Population III), we investigate the fragmentation properties of metal-free gas in the context of a hierarchical model of structure formation. We…
In order to characterize how dark matter (DM) annihilation inside stars changes the aspect of a stellar cluster we computed the evolution until the ignition of the He burning of stars from 0.7 to 3.5 M_sun within halos of DM with different…
Understanding the formation of the first stars is one of the frontier topics in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Their emergence signaled the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, leading to a…
The existence of substructure in halos of annihilating dark matter would be expected to substantially boost the rate at which annihilation occurs. Ultracompact minihalos of dark matter (UCMHs) are one of the more extreme examples of this.…
Several recent studies have considered modifications to the standard weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) scenario in which the cross section (times relative velocity v) for pair annihilation is enhanced by a factor 1/v. Since…
The theory for the formation of the first population of stars (Pop III) predicts a IMF composed predominantly of high-mass stars, in contrast to the present-day IMF, which tends to yield stars with masses less than 1 M_Solar. The leading…
We obtain predictions for the properties of cold dark matter annihilation radiation using high resolution hydrodynamic zoom-in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies (APOSTLE project) carried out as part of the "Evolution and…
Population III (pop III) stars were born in halos characterised by a pristine gas composition. In such a halo, once the gas density reaches n$_{\mathrm{H}} \sim$ 1 cm$^{-3}$, molecular cooling leads to the collapse of the gas and the birth…
We study the impact of a warm dark matter (WDM) cosmology on dwarf galaxy formation through a suite of cosmological hydrodynamical zoom-in simulations of $M_{\rm halo} \approx10^{10}\,M_{\odot}$ dark matter halos as part of the Feedback in…
We explore the possible signatures of dark matter (DM) pair annihilations in the nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxy Draco. After investigating the mass models for Draco in the light of available observational data, we carefully model the DM…
We model gas cooling in high-resolution N-body simulations in order to investigate the formation of the first generation of stars. We follow a region of a LCDM universe especially selected to contain a rich cluster by the present day. The…
Ambient dark matter (DM) around binary black holes can imprint characteristic signatures on gravitational waves emitted from their merger. The exact signature depends sensitively on the DM density profile around the black holes. We run very…