Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2006-02-20
Phys.Rev.Lett.97:191303,2006
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PRL
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.191303
We use the Ly-alpha forest power spectrum measured by the SDSS and high-resolution spectroscopy observations in combination with cosmic microwave background and galaxy clustering constraints to place limits on a sterile neutrino as a dark matter candidate in the warm dark matter (WDM) scenario. Such a neutrino would be created in the early universe through mixing with an active neutrino and would suppress structure on scales smaller than its free streaming scale. We ran a series of high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations with varying neutrino mass to describe the effect of a sterile neutrino on the Ly-alpha forest power spectrum. We find that the mass limit is m_s >14 keV at 95% c.l. (10keV at 99.9%), which is nearly an order of magnitude tighter constraint than previously published limits and is above the upper limit allowed by X-ray constraints, excluding this candidate as dark matter in this model. The corresponding limit for a neutrino that decoupled early while in thermal equilibrium is 2.5keV (95% c.l.).
Makarov Alexey
McDonald Patrick
Seljak Uros
Trac Hy
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