Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Constraining the warm dark matter particle mass with Milky Way satellites

Kennedy, R.; Frenk, C.; Cole, S.; Benson, A.

Constraining the warm dark matter particle mass with Milky Way satellites Thumbnail


Authors

R. Kennedy

C. Frenk

A. Benson



Abstract

Particle physics theories predict the existence of particles (such as keV mass sterile neutrinos) which could behave as warm dark matter (WDM), producing a cutoff in the linear density power spectrum on the scale of dwarf galaxies. Thus, the abundance of Milky Way satellite galaxies depends on the mass of the warm particle and also scales with the mass of the host galactic halo. We use the GALFORM semi-analytic model of galaxy formation to compare predicted satellite luminosity functions to Milky Way data and determine a lower bound on the thermally produced WDM particle mass. This depends strongly on the Milky Way halo mass and, to some extent, on the baryonic physics assumed. For our fiducial model, we find that for a particle mass of 3.3 keV (the 2σ lower limit from an analysis of the Lyman α forest by Viel et al.) the Milky Way halo mass is required to be >1.4 × 1012 M⊙. For this same fiducial model, we also find that all WDM particle masses are ruled out (at 95 per cent confidence) if the Milky Way halo mass is smaller than 1.1 × 1012 M⊙, while if the mass of the Galactic halo is greater than 1.8 × 1012 M⊙, only WDM particle masses larger than 2 keV are allowed.

Citation

Kennedy, R., Frenk, C., Cole, S., & Benson, A. (2014). Constraining the warm dark matter particle mass with Milky Way satellites. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 442(3), 2487-2495. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu719

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 9, 2014
Online Publication Date Jun 24, 2014
Publication Date Aug 1, 2014
Deposit Date Aug 21, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 442
Issue 3
Pages 2487-2495
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu719
Keywords Galaxies: dwarf, Galaxies: formation, Dark matter.

Files

Published Journal Article (471 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations