Elsevier : Snowmass2021 theory frontier white paper: Astrophysical and cosmological probes of dark matter

Boddy, Kimberly K.; Vegetti, Simona; Ali-Haïmoud, Yacine; Natarajan, Priyamvada; Weniger, Christoph; Muñoz, Julian B.; McDermott, Samuel D.; Erickcek, Adrienne L.; Witte, Samuel J.; Leane, Rebecca K.; Croon, Djuna; Mishra-Sharma, Siddharth; Lisanti, Mariangela; Nadler, Ethan O.; Buschmann, Malte; Rodd, Nicholas L.; Gluscevic, Vera; Cholis, Ilias; Price-Whelan, Adrian

doi:10.1016/j.jheap.2022.06.005

Article
Report number	arXiv:2203.06380 ; FERMILAB-CONF-22-151-T
Title	Snowmass2021 theory frontier white paper: Astrophysical and cosmological probes of dark matter
Author(s)	Boddy, Kimberly K. (Texas U.) ; Lisanti, Mariangela (Princeton U. ; Flatiron Inst., New York) ; McDermott, Samuel D. (Fermilab) ; Rodd, Nicholas L. (CERN) ; Weniger, Christoph (Amsterdam U. ; U. Amsterdam, GRAPPA) ; Ali-Haïmoud, Yacine (New York U., CCPP) ; Buschmann, Malte (Princeton U.) ; Cholis, Ilias (Oakland U.) ; Croon, Djuna (Durham U., IPPP) ; Erickcek, Adrienne L. (North Carolina U.) ; Gluscevic, Vera (UCLA) ; Leane, Rebecca K. (SLAC ; KIPAC, Menlo Park) ; Mishra-Sharma, Siddharth (Harvard U. ; IAIFI, Cambridge ; MIT, Cambridge, CTP) ; Muñoz, Julian B. (Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.) ; Nadler, Ethan O. (Carnegie Inst. Observ. ; Caltech ; UCLA) ; Natarajan, Priyamvada (Yale U.) ; Price-Whelan, Adrian (Flatiron Inst., New York) ; Vegetti, Simona (Garching, Max Planck Inst.) ; Witte, Samuel J. (Amsterdam U. ; U. Amsterdam, GRAPPA)
Publication	2022-06-22
Imprint	2022-03-12
Number of pages	27
In:	JHEAp 35 (2022) 112-138
In:	2021 Snowmass Summer Study, Seattle, WA, United States, 11 - 20 July 2021, pp.112-138
DOI	10.1016/j.jheap.2022.06.005
Subject category	astro-ph.HE ; Astrophysics and Astronomy ; astro-ph.GA ; Astrophysics and Astronomy ; astro-ph.CO ; Astrophysics and Astronomy ; hep-ph ; Particle Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract	While astrophysical and cosmological probes provide a remarkably precise and consistent picture of the quantity and general properties of dark matter, its fundamental nature remains one of the most significant open questions in physics. Obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of dark matter within the next decade will require overcoming a number of theoretical challenges: the groundwork for these strides is being laid now, yet much remains to be done. Chief among the upcoming challenges is establishing the theoretical foundation needed to harness the full potential of new observables in the astrophysical and cosmological domains, spanning the early Universe to the inner portions of galaxies and the stars therein. Identifying the nature of dark matter will also entail repurposing and implementing a wide range of theoretical techniques from outside the typical toolkit of astrophysics, ranging from effective field theory to the dramatically evolving world of machine learning and artificial-intelligence-based statistical inference. Through this work, the theory frontier will be at the heart of dark matter discoveries in the upcoming decade.
Copyright/License	publication: © 2022-2025 The Author(s) (License: CC-BY-4.0) preprint: (License: CC BY 4.0)

$The exposure of existing and upcoming X-ray and $\gamma$-ray instruments which can search for the decay or annihilation of dark matter. Significant progress in the coming years is expected at ${\cal O}(\text{TeV}$--$\text{PeV})$ energies, a full exploitation of which will require theoretical developments in the models and spectra of heavy dark matter. Such work will also complement instruments searching for even higher energy photons, such as PAO~\cite{PierreAuger:2015fol,PierreAuger:2016kuz}. At ${\cal O}(\text{keV}$--$\text{GeV})$ energies, the expected observational progress is far more modest at the level of exposure. Exposure---the product of effective area, ${\cal E}$, and observation time, $T$---partially controls how many photons an instrument will detect on average for a given dark matter flux. We caution that this is just one metric by which instruments can be compared: for certain dark matter searches, the field of view or energy resolution can be critical, and then the improvements made at lower energies will be more substantial. Regardless, improved analysis strategies will be crucial to further enhance the dark matter reach for this lower band. At the top of the figure, we highlight the approximate mass range of several canonical particle dark matter~(DM) scenarios; one can roughly associate this mass range with the corresponding energy range of probes, although this connection is only approximate.$ $Recent constraints derived on the axion-photon coupling using radio observations of the Galactic Center obtained with the Green Bank Telescope ~\cite{Foster:2022fxn} (solid red, labeled ``GBT''); shown for comparison is the 10$\sigma$ discovery limit for SKA in the same frequency band (transparent red). These results are compared with the expected QCD axion parameter space (yellow), two benchmark QCD axion models (brown, dot-dashed), existing constraints from haloscopes (blue)~\cite{Zhong:2018rsr,HAYSTAC:2020kwv,Braine:2019fqb,Crisosto:2019fcj,ADMX:2021nhd} and CAST~\cite{Anastassopoulos:2017ftl} (grey), and indirect searches using magnetic white dwarfs (MWDs)~\cite{Dessert:2021bkv,Dessert:2022yqq}.$ $Schematic representation of the coverage of current and future probes of dark matter physics across various ranges of redshift $z$ (i.e., eras that observable photons or signals primarily originate from), wave number $k$, and the corresponding halo mass $M_\text{halo}$. The ranges of individual probes are approximate. Note that some of the listed probes are well-established observationally, while some are still in nascent phases of observational development, but they all represent complementary probes of dark matter. We do not include probes that only affect background evolution and thus do not have an associated scale $k$ to display in this figure. Similar figures can be found in~\cite[e.g.][]{Buckley:2017ijx,Gluscevic:2019yal,Sabti:2021unj}.$ Show more plots

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