Constraints on the identity of the dark matter from strong gravitational lenses

Li, Ran; Frenk, Carlos S.; Cole, Shaun; Gao, Liang; Bose, Sownak; Hellwing, Wojciech A.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stw939

Cited by 85 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…However, only limited data are currently available in these regimes. The gravitational lensing techniques pioneered by Koopmans (2005) and Vegetti & Koopmans (2009) may be used to constrain the subhalo mass function directly, potentially distinguishing WDM from CDM (Li et al 2015). By increasing the sample of strong lensing systems, upcoming telescopes such as the SKA and LSST could play a major role in constraining the nature of the dark matter.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reionization in sterile neutrino cosmologies

Bose¹,

Frenk²,

Hou³

et al. 2016

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTWe investigate the process of reionisation in a model in which the dark matter is a warm elementary particle such as a sterile neutrino. We focus on models that are consistent with the dark matter decay interpretation of the recently detected line at 3.5 keV in the X-ray spectra of galaxies and clusters. In warm dark matter models the primordial spectrum of density perturbations has a cut-off on the scale of dwarf galaxies. Structure formation therefore begins later than in the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model and very few objects form below the cut-off mass scale. To calculate the number of ionising photons, we use the Durham semianalytic model of galaxy formation, GALFORM. We find that even the most extreme 7 keV sterile neutrino we consider is able to reionise the Universe early enough to be compatible with the bounds on the epoch of reionisation from Planck. This, perhaps surprising, result arises from the rapid build-up of high redshift galaxies in the sterile neutrino models which is also reflected in a faster evolution of their far-UV luminosity function between 10 > z > 7 than in CDM. The dominant sources of ionising photons are systematically more massive in the sterile neutrino models than in CDM. As a consistency check on the models, we calculate the present-day luminosity function of satellites of Milky Way-like galaxies. When the satellites recently discovered in the DES survey are taken into account, strong constraints are placed on viable sterile neutrino models.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reionization in sterile neutrino cosmologies

Bose¹,

Frenk²,

Hou³

et al. 2016

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

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“…As mentioned earlier, the line-of-sight and substructure contributions can be calculated by integrating the halo and subhalo mass functions from the lowest detectable mass M low (which is set by the observational sensitivity and angular resolution) to the highest possible mass for a dark clump. Here, we use equation (20) to convert the integration limit M low = M PJ tot into an effective NFW mass, and then we use equation (18) to evolve the latter with redshift, and thus obtain an effective M low (z) for line-of-sight haloes (as already pointed out by Li et al 2016b). In Section 4.1, we show how to integrate the (sub)halo mass function and give some examples of the total number of detectable (sub)haloes for specific combinations of lens and source redshift.…”

Section: Quantifying the Line-of-sight Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the line-of-sight contribution in substructure lensing

Despali

Vegetti

White

et al. 2018

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

120

165

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We investigate how Einstein rings and magnified arcs are affected by small-mass dark-matter haloes placed along the line-of-sight to gravitational lens systems. By comparing the gravitational signature of line-of-sight haloes with that of substructures within the lensing galaxy, we derive a mass-redshift relation that allows us to rescale the detection threshold (i.e. lowest detectable mass) for substructures to a detection threshold for line-of-sight haloes at any redshift. We then quantify the line-of-sight contribution to the total number density of low-mass objects that can be detected through strong gravitational lensing. Finally, we assess the degeneracy between substructures and line-of-sight haloes of different mass and redshift to provide a statistical interpretation of current and future detections, with the aim of distinguishing between CDM and WDM. We find that line-of-sight haloes statistically dominate with respect to substructures, by an amount that strongly depends on the source and lens redshifts, and on the chosen dark matter model. Substructures represent about 30 percent of the total number of perturbers for low lens and source redshifts (as for the SLACS lenses), but less than 10 per cent for high redshift systems. We also find that for data with high enough signal-to-noise ratio and angular resolution, the non-linear effects arising from a double-lens-plane configuration are such that one is able to observationally recover the line-of-sight halo redshift with an absolute error precision of 0.15 at the 68 per cent confidence level.

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“…Approximately a few hundred high quality strong lens systems would suffice to rule out either the 7 keV sterile neutrino model or CDM itself [360]. Very high resolution imaging is the primary requirement, either in the optical or UV, or using interferometry at submillimeter and longer wavelengths [354].…”

Section: Astrophysical Tests Of the Nature Of The Dark Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark Matter Haloes and Subhaloes

2019

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The development of methods and algorithms to solve the N-body problem for classical, collisionless, non-relativistic particles has made it possible to follow the growth and evolution of cosmic dark matter structures over most of the Universe's history. In the best studied case -the cold dark matter or CDM model -the dark matter is assumed to consist of elementary particles that had negligible thermal velocities at early times. Progress over the past three decades has led to a nearly complete description of the assembly, structure and spatial distribution of dark matter haloes, and their substructure in this model, over almost the entire mass range of astronomical objects. On scales of galaxies and above, predictions from this standard CDM model have been shown to provide a remarkably good match to a wide variety of astronomical data over a large range of epochs, from the temperature structure of the cosmic background radiation to the large-scale distribution of galaxies. The frontier in this field has shifted to the relatively unexplored subgalactic scales, the domain of the central regions of massive haloes, and that of low-mass haloes and subhaloes, where potentially fundamental questions remain. Answering them may require: (i) the effect of known but uncertain baryonic processes (involving gas and stars), and/or (ii) alternative models with new dark matter physics. Here we present a review of the field, focusing on our current understanding of dark matter structure from N-body simulations and on the challenges ahead.

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Constraints on the identity of the dark matter from strong gravitational lenses

Cited by 85 publications

References 66 publications

Reionization in sterile neutrino cosmologies

Reionization in sterile neutrino cosmologies

Modelling the line-of-sight contribution in substructure lensing

Dark Matter Haloes and Subhaloes

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