Related papers: Could the Cosmological Recombination Spectrum Help…
Dark matter annihilation or de-excitation, decay of metastable species, or other new physics may inject energetic electrons and photons into the photon-baryon fluid during and after recombination. As such particles cool, they partition…
The annihilation or decay of Dark Matter (DM) particles could affect the thermal history of the universe and leave an observable signature in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. We update constraints on the annihilation rate of…
The main goal of this work is to calculate the contributions to the cosmological recombination spectrum due to bound-bound transitions of helium. We show that due to the presence of helium in the early Universe unique features appear in the…
If dark matter decay or annihilate, a large amount of energy and particles would be released into the cosmic plasma. Therefore, they could modify the thermal and ionization history of our universe, then leave footprints on the cosmic…
We calculate the post-recombination contribution to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectral distortion due to general exotic energy injections, including dark matter (DM) decaying or annihilating to Standard Model particles. Upon…
The precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background power spectrum put a strong constraint on the dark matter annihilation cross section since the electromagnetic energy injection by the dark matter annihilation affects the…
High-precision measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation have been previously employed to set robust constraints on dark matter annihilation during recombination. In this work…
We compute in detail the rate at which energy injected by dark matter annihilation heats and ionizes the photon-baryon plasma at z ~ 1000, and provide accurate fitting functions over the relevant redshift range for a broad array of…
We explore the impact of dark matter annihilation on the 21-cm signal during the cosmic dawn and epoch of reionization (EoR). Using modified 21cmFAST simulations and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), we investigate how energy injected…
The 21-cm signal provides a novel avenue to measure the thermal state of the universe during cosmic dawn and reionization (redshifts $z\sim 5-30$), and thus to probe energy injection from decaying or annihilating dark matter (DM). These DM…
Dark matter annihilation can have a strong impact on many astrophysical processes in the Universe. In the case of Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilation cross sections, the annihilation rates are enhanced at late times, thus enhancing the…
Light dark photons are subject to various plasma effects, such as Debye screening and resonant oscillations, which can lead to a more complex cosmological evolution than is experienced by conventional cold dark matter candidates.…
The recent EDGES measurements of the global 21-cm signal from the cosmic dawn suggest that the kinetic temperature of the inter-galactic medium (IGM) might be significantly lower compared to its expected value. The colder IGM directly…
We study the effects of dark matter annihilation during and after the cosmic recombination epoch on the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, taking into account the detailed energy deposition of the annihilation products. It is found…
We study the cosmological signatures of Invisibly Annihilating Dark Matter (IAnDM), where DM annihilates into dark radiation particles that are decoupled from the Standard Model (SM). In the simple benchmark model we consider here, such…
The cosmological recombination radiation (CRR) is one of the inevitable $\Lambda$CDM spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). While it shows a rich spectral structure across dm-mm wavelengths, it is also one of the…
We explore the imprint of the cosmological hydrogen recombination lines on the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In particular, we focus our analysis in the three strongest lines for the Balmer, Paschen and Brackett…
With an aim towards modeling cosmologies beyond the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm, we demonstrate the automatic construction of recombination history emulators while enforcing a prior of causal dynamics. These methods are particularly useful in the…
Dark matter annihilation has the potential to leave an imprint on the properties of the first luminous structures at Cosmic Dawn as well as the overall evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). In this work, we employ a semi-analytic…
Minimal atomic dark matter with its distinctive cooling mechanisms offers an instructive framework for understanding the potential impact of dark matter on small-scale structure formation and early cosmology. The model consists of two…