2012/05/07 by Pat Scott, Torsten Bringmann, Yashar Akrami
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Constraint (computer-aided design) #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Inflation (cosmology) #Parameter space #Phase space #Primordial black hole #Space (punctuation) #Spectral density #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/375/1/032012
published as J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 375 (2012) 032012 · 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in J Phys Conf Series (Proceedings of TAUP 2011, Munich)
arxiv created 2012/05/07 · openalex publication_date 2012/07/30 · arxiv updated 2012/08/13 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Events like inflation or phase transitions can produce large density perturbations on very small scales in the early Universe. Probes of small scales are therefore useful for e.g. discriminating between inflationary models. Until recently, the only such constraint came from non-observation of primordial black holes (PBHs), associated with the largest perturbations. Moderate-amplitude perturbations can collapse shortly after matter-radiation equality to form ultracompact minihalos (UCMHs) of dark matter, in far greater abundance than PBHs. If dark matter self-annihilates, UCMHs become excellent targets for indirect detection. Here we discuss the gamma-ray fluxes expected from UCMHs, the prospects of observing them with gamma-ray telescopes, and limits upon the primordial power spectrum derived from their non-observation by the Fermi Large Area Space Telescope.