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arXiv · 2206.13520

Hints of dark photon dark matter from observations and hydrodynamical simulations of the low-redshift Lyman-$α$ forest

James S. Bolton·Andrea Caputo·Hongwan Liu·Matteo Viel
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Abstract

Recent work has suggested that an additional $\lesssim 6.9 \rm{\, eV}$ per baryon of heating in the intergalactic medium is needed to reconcile hydrodynamical simulations with Lyman-$α$ forest absorption line widths at redshift $z\simeq 0.1$. Resonant conversion of dark photon dark matter into low frequency photons is a viable source of such heating. We perform the first hydrodynamical simulations including dark photon heating and show that dark photons with mass $m_{A'}\sim 8\times 10^{-14}\rm\,eV\,c^{-2}$ and kinetic mixing $ε\sim 5\times 10^{-15}$ can alleviate the heating excess. A prediction of this model is a non-standard thermal history for underdense gas at $z \gtrsim 3$.

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James S. Bolton, Andrea Caputo, Hongwan Liu, Matteo Viel. 2022-06-27. Hints of dark photon dark matter from observations and hydrodynamical simulations of the low-redshift Lyman-$α$ forest. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.129.211102

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