Astrophysical manifestations of clumps of cold dark matter

Small-scale structures (clumps) of dark matter may manifest themselves owing to the annihilation of dark-matter particles in them as pointlike gamma-ray sources. In view of this, investigation into respective effects on the basis of data on unidentified pointlike gamma-ray sources is of importance....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysics of atomic nuclei Vol. 76; no. 4; pp. 469 - 475
Main Authors Belotsky, K. M., Kirillov, A. A., Khlopov, M. Yu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht SP MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica 01.04.2013
Springer
MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica
Subjects
Analysis
ANNIHILATION
ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
CROSS SECTIONS
DATA ANALYSIS
DENSITY
DISTRIBUTION
Elementary Particles and Fields
Gamma rays
GAMMA SOURCES
Herons
NEUTRINOS
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
Particle and Nuclear Physics
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
VELOCITY
Atomic Nucleus
Cold Dark Matter
Heavy Neutrino
Spectral Index
Annihilation Cross Section
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Summary:Small-scale structures (clumps) of dark matter may manifest themselves owing to the annihilation of dark-matter particles in them as pointlike gamma-ray sources. In view of this, investigation into respective effects on the basis of data on unidentified pointlike gamma-ray sources is of importance. It is shown that the existing uncertainties in the description of physical properties of dark-matter particles (their annihilation cross section) and in the distribution of their density in the clumps are of crucial importance; therefore, an analysis of data from the observation of pointlike gamma-ray sources makes it possible to impose constraints on the values of respective uncertain parameters (that is, to single out preferable ones). It is considered that the rate of annihilation of dark-matter particles in the clumps may be enhanced both owing to a higher density and owing to the growth of the cross section at low relative velocities of dark-matter particles in the clumps. In particular, dark-matter particles may have self-interaction of the Coulomb type, and this leads to the enhancement of the annihilation rate because of the Sommerfeld-Sakharov effect. It is shown that the heavy-neutrino model featuring an extra interaction can explain partly Fermi and EGRET data on unidentified pointlike gamma-ray sources. It is indicated that the motion of gamma-ray sources over the celestial sphere can be noticed for several clumps within several years of observations.
ISSN:1063-7788
1562-692X
DOI:10.1134/S1063778813040029