1998/02/18 by S. D. Biller, J. Buckley, J. H. Buckley +30 · 78 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Galaxy #Infrared #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino oscillation #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Photon #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Radiative transfer #Sterile neutrino #astro-ph #hep-ex #hep-ph #physics.space-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.80.2992
published in Physical Review Letters 80(14), 2992-2995 (American Physical Society) · 13 pages including 4 figures
arxiv created 1998/02/18 · openalex publication_date 1998/04/06 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
From considering the effect of \ensuremathγ- \ensuremathγ interactions on recently observed TeV gamma-ray spectra, improved limits are set to the density of extragalactic infrared photons which are robust and essentially model independent. The resulting limits are more than an order of magnitude more restrictive than direct observations in the 0.025--0.3 eV regime. These limits are used to improve constraints on radiative neutrino decay in the mass range above 0.05 eV and to rule out very massive objects as providing the dark matter needed to explain galaxy rotation curves. Lower bounds on the maximum distance which TeV gamma rays may probe are also derived.