Hunting Dark Matter Lines in the Infrared Background with the James Webb Space Telescope

2023/10/23 by Janish, Ryan, Pinetti, Elena · 2 citations
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.15395

Abstract

Dark matter particles with a mass around 1 eV can decay into near-infrared photons. Utilising available public blank sky observations from the NIRSpec IFU on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we search for a narrow emission line due to decaying dark matter and derive leading constraints in the mass range 0.8-3 eV on the decay rate to photons, and more specifically, on the axion-photon coupling for the case of axion-like particles. We exclude τ< 6.7⋅ 10²⁶ s at m_{\rm DM} ≃ 0.9 eV and, in the case of axions, g_{a γγ} > 9.4 ⋅ 10^-12 GeV^-1 for m_a = 2.15 eV. Our results do not rely on dedicated observations, rather we use blank sky observations intended for sky subtraction, and thus our reach may be automatically strengthened as JWST continues to observe.

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• Neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, and supermassive black hole formation explained with Majorons
• New bounds on Axion-Like Particles in the Ultraviolet from Legacy Data

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