Related papers: Dark matter annihilation and its effect on CMB and…
The reionization of helium describes the transition from its singly ionized state to a doubly-ionized state in the intergalactic medium (IGM). This process is important for the thermal evolution of the IGM and influences the mean free path…
We consider a self-interacting dark matter model in which the massive dark photon mediating the self-interaction decays to light dark fermions to avoid over-closing the universe. We find that if the model is constrained to explain the dark…
The annihilation rate of weakly interacting cold dark matter particles at the galactic center could be greatly enhanced by the growth of a density spike around the central supermassive black hole (SBH). Here we discuss the effects of…
Cosmological simulations of the $\Lambda$CDM model suggest that the dark matter halos of dwarf galaxies are denser in their center than what observational data of such galaxies imply. In this letter, we propose a novel solution to this…
It has been shown by many independent studies that the cold dark matter scenario produces singular galactic dark halos, in strong contrast with observations. Possible remedies are that either the dark matter is warm so that it has…
Spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide a unique tool for learning about the early phases of cosmic history, reaching deep into the primordial Universe. At redshifts $z<10^6$, thermalization processes become…
Any injection of electromagnetically interacting particles during the cosmic dark ages will lead to increased ionization, heating, production of Lyman-alpha photons and distortions to the energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background,…
High-energy photons from dark matter annihilation contribute to the cosmic gamma-ray background (CGB). Since dark matter particles are weakly interacting, annihilation can happen only in high density regions such as dark matter halos. The…
We study the absorption along lines of sight toward high-z radio sources caused by the 21 cm transition of neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) before reionization. Using semi-analytic methods, we compute the number density of…
The redshifted 21cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn is expected to provide unprecedented insights into early Universe astrophysics and cosmology. Here we explore how dark matter can heat the intergalactic medium before the first galaxies,…
The redshifted 21cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn is expected to provide unprecedented insights into early Universe astrophysics and cosmology. Here, we briefly summarize how decaying dark matter can heat the intergalactic medium before the…
Dark matter constitutes the great majority of the matter content in the Universe, but its microscopic nature remains an intriguing mystery, with profound implications for particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. Here we shed light on…
We investigate the effects of dark matter annihilation on objects with masses close to the sub-stellar limit, finding that the minimum mass for stable hydrogen burning is larger than the $\sim0.075 M_\odot $ value predicted in the Standard…
We investigate reheating of the universe by early formation of stars and quasars in the hierarchical clustering scheme of cold dark matter scenario, with perturbation fluctuations normalized by the COBE data. It is found that ionizing uv…
We estimate the maximum contribution to reionization from the first generation of massive stars, with zero metallicity, under the assumption that one of these stars forms with a fixed mass in every collapsed halo in which metal-free gas is…
Light dark-matter ($M\leq20$ MeV) particles freeze out after neutrino decoupling. If the dark-matter particle couples to a neutrino or an electromagnetic plasma, the late time entropy production from dark-matter annihilation can change the…
The bulk of the hydrogen in the universe transformed from neutral to ionized somewhere in the redshift interval 5 < z < 40, most likely due to ionizing photons produced by an early generation of stars or mini-quasars. The resulting free…
The annihilation of neutralino dark matter may result in observable signals in different wavelength. In the present paper we will discuss the effect of neutralino annihilation in the halo of our Galaxy and in its center. According to high…
Anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have proven to be a very powerful tool to constrain dark matter annihilation at the epoch of recombination. However, CMB constraints are currently derived using a number of reasonable…
In this paper we explore the potential effects of DM annihilations on the cosmological recombination spectrum. With this example we want to demonstrate that the cosmological recombination spectrum in principle is sensitive to details…