2025/10/14 by Amina Hussein, Gonzalo Herrera, Hussein, Abdelaziz +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #History and Developments in Astronomy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.12877
openalex publication_date 2025/10/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the possibility that cosmic-ray electron cooling through dark matter-electron scatterings contributes to the low radiative efficiency observed in radio-loud galaxies such as M87. Light dark matter can scatter efficiently off electrons in M87, lowering the observed bolometric luminosity compared to astrophysical expectations. This consideration allows us to probe previously unexplored regions of the parameter space of dark matter-electron interactions. We further model the cosmic-ray electron distribution by numerically solving a diffusion equation along the jet and find that efficient dark matter-electron interactions can induce a flattening of the spectral index at different distances from the central supermassive black hole, in better alignment with radio observations from M87.