arXiv subjects

Man Ho Chan

Publications and source records attributed to Man Ho Chan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Is the mysterious {\it Punctum} a primordial black hole?

A recent study has discovered a highly polarized millimeter continuum source called {\it Punctum} located at the central region of NGC 4945 which doesn't fit any known category. Apart from the radio detection at $\approx 100$ GHz, there is no identified counterpart to {\it Punctum} in other radio, infra-red, optical, and X-ray bands. All available potential models, including magnetar, supernova remnant and microquasar, cannot provide satisfactory explanation for the exceptionally high polarization of $\sim 50$\% and large luminosity in mm band $L_{\rm mm} \approx 2\times 10^{35}$ erg/s within a small size $<2$ pc shown in {\it Punctum}. In this article, we discuss the possibility that {\it Punctum} is indeed a primordial black hole (PBH) with a dark matter density spike. We show that the synchrotron radiation due to the electrons and positrons produced from dark matter annihilation can satisfactorily explain the observed properties of {\it Punctum} and we can effectively obtain the annihilation cross section $\langle \sigma v \rangle \sim 10^{-33}$ cm$^3$/s using our developed analytic framework. Furthermore, if the {\it Punctum} PBH mass is $\sim 10-100M_{\odot}$, the preferred dark matter mass range is $m_{\rm DM} \sim 10-1000$ MeV.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Self-Lensing Signals in Binary Systems Containing White Dwarfs with Neutron star or Stellar-mass Black hole Companions

Light curves from binary systems containing white dwarfs with neutron star or stellar-mass black hole companions (WD+NS and WD+BH) with edge-on orbital planes potentially show self-lensing/eclipsing signals. Here, we evaluate the properties and detectability of these signals in the NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) observations. WD+NS systems with orbital periods $T\lesssim25~$days mostly have considerable finite-source sizes with the normalized source radii $\rho_{\star}\gtrsim1$. WD+BH systems with $T\gtrsim3$ days have $\rho_{\star}\lesssim1$, and $\rho_{\star}\sim0.01$ for BHs with a few tens solar-mass. Our analytical calculations show the probabilities of occurring self-lensing signals in WD+NS and WD+BH systems are $\sim10^{-3},~10^{-2}$, and maximize for systems with low-mass WDs revolving massive NSs/BHs. We simulate their light curves and generate synthetic data for them by applying the observing protocols of these two satellites. We assume self-lensing signals are detectable if (i) $1\leq T\leq T_{\rm{obs}}$ (where $T_{\rm{obs}}=62~\rm{and}~27.4$ days are the Roman and TESS continuous observing windows), (ii) $\rm{SNR}\ge3,~6$, their signals are (iii) deeper than twice the photometric error, and (iv) covered by at least one datum. Systems with detectable self-lensing signals in the TESS and Roman observations on average have small inclination angles $i\lesssim0.2^{\circ}$, with the orbital periods $\sim6,~19~$days, and their signals last $\sim[6,~30]~\rm{minutes}$. The TESS and Roman efficiencies for detecting these signals are $\sim2-6\times10^{-4}$ and $\sim2-12\times10^{-10}$. Although detecting these self-lensing signals by Roman is impossible, the TESS telescope potentially manifests at least one self-lensing signal due to these binary systems, if $8\%,~\rm{and}~3\%$ of WDs have NS and BH companions.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2025

The exotic black hole-neutron star binaries in our Galaxy

It has been suggested that there are $\sim 10^5$ black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) binaries in our Galaxy. However, despite the effort of intensive radio search for decades, none of these binaries has been found to date. These binaries are regarded as a holy grail of astronomy because they can greatly improve our understanding about relativistic systems of compact objects and fundamental physics. In this article, we propose the existence of exotic BH-NS binaries which can open a new way in searching the missing BH-NS binaries in our Galaxy. By considering the possible dark matter density spikes formed around the primordial black holes in the BH-NS binaries, we show that extremely high temperature ($\sim 10^6$ K) could be maintained on the surface of the neutron stars due to effective dark matter capture. This interesting feature can also help reveal the nature of dark matter and possibly further improve the upper limit of dark matter scattering cross section well below $10^{-47}$ cm$^2$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Analytical Emulator for the Baryon Density Distribution inside the Fuzzy Dark Matter Soliton from Machine Learning

An empirical baryon density profile can be included in the Schr\"odinger-Poisson (SP) equations to influence the fuzzy dark matter (FDM) soliton formation. However, to probe the effects of baryon on the other dynamical evolutions of the FDM soliton, its equation of motion (EoM) inside the corresponding FDM soliton is needed. In this paper, given an empirical baryon density profile, we first provide the cylindrical symmetric FDM soliton solution about the FDM density and the total potential of FDM and baryon. Then, instead of EoM, we build an analytical emulator (AE) for the baryon density distribution from the obtained FDM density and total potential by machine learning. Finally, we check that this AE works as well as an empirical baryon density profile for the FDM soliton formation, with the fractional errors $\lesssim0.04$. It should also work as a kind of baryon EoM for some other simple FDM soliton evolutions.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Does the high-energy AMS-02 positron flux originate from the dark matter density spikes around nearby black holes?

Recent measurements made by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) have detected accurate positron flux for energy range 1-1000 GeV. The energy spectrum can be best described by two source terms: the low-energy background diffusion term and an unknown high-energy source term. In this article, we discuss the possibility of the emission of positrons originating from dark matter annihilation in two nearby black hole X-ray binaries A0620-00 and XTE J1118+480. We show that the dark matter density spikes around these two black holes can best produce the observed AMS-02 high-energy positron flux due to dark matter annihilation with rest mass $m_{\rm DM} \approx 8000$ GeV via the $W^+W^-$ annihilation channel. This initiates a new proposal to account for the unknown high-energy source term in the AMS-02 positron spectrum.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Flat Circular Velocities on a megaparsec scale from the $\Lambda$CDM model

A recent study using weak gravitational lensing reveals that there are some isolated galaxies having almost flat rotation curves at very large distance from the galactic centres. According to the authors of the study this provides a strong challenge the standard cold dark matter model, since the dark haloes are too small to explain their observations, especially for small stellar masses. In this article, we show that improving their model, the virial radius is larger than their estimates. The NFW rotational curve, and especially the pseudo Isothermal one, are in agreement with their flat rotational curves, especially for the larger baryonic mass bins used by the authors.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Atmospheric absorption of dark matter

Typically, the interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter is assumed to be very small. Nevertheless, in this article, I show that the effective resonant absorption of dark photon dark matter in the atmosphere is definitely possible. This might also be associated with the alleged temperature anomalies observed in our upper stratosphere. By allowing a small amount of additional energy deposition to our upper stratosphere, a narrow dark matter mass range $m_A \sim 0.0001-0.001$ eV and the corresponding range of the mixing parameter $\varepsilon$ are constrained for the first time. This proposal might overturn our usual assumption of extremely weak interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter and revive the hope of detecting dark matter directly. Some important implications of this proposal such as the heating of planets and supermassive dark stars would also be discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Identifying dark matter signals by the radio continuum spectral data of the cool-core cluster RX J1720.1+2638

Investigating the signals of dark matter annihilation is one of the most popular ways to understand the nature of dark matter. In particular, many recent studies are focussing on using radio data to examine the possible signals of dark matter revealed in galaxies and galaxy clusters. In this article, we investigate on the spectral data of the central radio halo of the cool-core cluster RX J1720.1+2638. We show that the radio spectral data can be best accounted by the synchrotron emission due to dark matter annihilation via $\tau$ lepton channel (with dark matter mass $m=15$ GeV) or $b$ quark channel (with dark matter mass $m=110$ GeV), although using the very coarse spectral data with notable errors. Despite the fact that cosmic-ray emission can also provide a good explanation for the observed radio spectrum, our results suggest a possible positive evidence for dark matter annihilation revealed in the form of radio emission in RX J1720.1+2638 cluster.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

On the time dependency of $a_0$

In this paper, we test one of the predictions of the Scale Invariant Vacuum (SIV) theory on MOND. According to that theory, MOND's acceleration $a_0$ is not a universal quantity but depends on several parameters, including time. To check this prediction, we compare the dependency of $a_0$ from redshift, using the values of $a_0$ obtained in Marra et al. (2020) by carrying a Bayesian inference for 153 galaxies of the SPARC sample. Since this sample does not contain galaxies at large redshift, we have estimated $a_0$ from the data in Nestor Shachar et al. (2023). The SPARC sample, for small values of the redshift, in the redshift range $0.00032-0.032$ gives a correlation with $z$, while the Nestor Shachar et al. (2023) data, in the higher redshift range $0.5-2.5$ gives an anti-correlation with the redshift $z$. Both samples show a dependency of $a_0$ from $z$, although the uncertainties involved are large, especially for the high-redshift galaxies. The combined sample gives an overall correlation of $a_0$ with $z$. The different behavior at low and high redshift can be related to a change of the $a_0(z)$ with redshift, or to the lower precision with which the high-redshift value of $a_0$ are known.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

The first robust evidence showing a dark matter density spike around the supermassive black hole in OJ 287

Black hole dynamics suggests that dark matter would re-distribute near a supermassive black hole to form a density spike. However, no direct evidence of dark matter density spike around a supermassive black hole has been identified. In this letter, we present the first robust evidence showing a dark matter density spike around a supermassive black hole. We revisit the data of the well-known supermassive black hole binary OJ 287 and show that the inclusion of the dynamical friction due to a dark matter density spike around the supermassive black hole can satisfactorily account for the observed orbital decay rate. The derived spike index $γ_{\rm sp}=2.351^{+0.032}_{-0.045}$ gives an excellent agreement with the value $γ_{\rm sp}=2.333$ predicted by the benchmark model assuming an adiabatically growing supermassive black hole. This provides a strong verification of the canonical theory suggested two decades ago modeling the gravitational interaction between collisionless dark matter and supermassive black holes.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

What if PSR J1910-5959A is an observable self-lensing binary?

In a binary, when the orbital plane of the companion star is almost edge-on along the line-of-sight direction, this would produce an observable self-gravitational lensing effect, which would slightly increase the overall optical intensity of the binary. However, the probability of getting one observable self-lensing binary (SLB) is very low. There are only five observed SLBs so far and all of them are eclipsing binaries. In this article, we theoretically show that the neutron star-white dwarf (NS-WD) binary PSR J1910-5959A could be an observable non-eclipsing SLB. It might be the first binary showing both periodic optical amplification and Shapiro time delay of radio signals, which is useful to verify our understanding about gravitational lensing in relativistic binaries. Moreover, we show that the observed peak amplification limit of the PSR J1910-5959A can help constrain the radius of the WD, which is a crucial parameter to examine the mass-radius and temperature-radius relationship for helium WD.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Constraining annihilating dark matter using the multi-frequency radio flux profiles of the M33 galaxy

Radio data can give stringent constraints for annihilating dark matter. In general, radio observations can detect very accurate radio flux density with high resolution and different frequencies for nearby galaxies. We are able to obtain the radio flux density as a function of distance from the galactic center and frequencies $S(r,ν)$. In this article, we demonstrate a comprehensive radio analysis of the M33 galaxy, combining the radio flux density profile $S(r)$ and the frequency spectrum $S(ν)$ to get the constraints of dark matter annihilation parameters. By analyzing the archival radio data obtained from the Effelsberg telescope, we show that the dark matter annihilation contributing to the radio flux density might be insignificant in the disk region of the M33 galaxy. Moreover, by including the baryonic radio contribution, we constrain the $2σ$ conservative upper limits of the annihilation cross section, which can be complementary to the existing constraints based on neutrino, cosmic-ray, and gamma-ray observations. Our results indicate that analyzing the galactic multi-frequency radio flux profiles can give useful and authentic constraints on dark matter for the leptophilic annihilation channels.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

A strong falsification of the universal radial acceleration relation in galaxies

In the past few decades, many studies revealed that there exist some apparent universal relations which can describe the dynamical properties in galaxies. In particular, the radial acceleration relation (RAR) is one of the most popular relations discovered recently which can be regarded as a universal law to connect the dynamical radial acceleration with the baryonic acceleration in galaxies. This has revealed an unexpected close connection between dark matter and baryonic matter in galaxies. In this article, by following the recent robust Galactic rotation curve analyses, we derive the Galactic RAR (GRAR) and show for the first time that it deviates from the alleged universal RAR at more than $5σ$. This provides a strong evidence to falsify the universal nature of RAR in galaxies claimed in past studies.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

A severe challenge to the MOND phenomenology in our Galaxy

Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is one of the most popular alternative theories of dark matter to explain the missing mass problem in galaxies. Although it remains controversial regarding MOND as a fundamental theory, MOND phenomenology has been shown to widely apply in different galaxies, which gives challenges to the standard $Λ$ cold dark matter model. In this article, we derive analytically the galactic rotation curve gradient in the MOND framework and present a rigorous analysis to examine the MOND phenomenology in our Galaxy. By assuming a benchmark baryonic disk density profile and two popular families of MOND interpolating functions, we show for the first time that the recent discovery of the declining Galactic rotation curve in the outer region ($R \approx 17-23$ kpc) can almost rule out the MOND phenomenology at more than $5σ$. This strongly supports some of the previous studies claiming that MOND is neither a fundamental theory nor a universal description of galactic properties.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

A new method to constrain annihilating dark matter

Recent indirect searches of dark matter using gamma-ray, radio, and cosmic-ray data have provided some stringent constraints on annihilating dark matter. In this article, we propose a new indirect method to constrain annihilating dark matter. By using the data of the G2 cloud near the Galactic supermassive black hole Sgr A*, we can get stringent constraints on the parameter space of dark matter mass and the annihilation cross section, especially for the non-leptophilic annihilation channels $b\bar{b}$ and $W^{\pm}$. For the thermal annihilation cross section, the lower bounds of dark matter mass can be constrained up to TeV order for the non-leptophilic channels with the standard spike index $γ_{\rm sp}=7/3$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

What if planet 9 has satellites?

In the past decade, numerical simulations started to reveal the possible existence of planet 9 in our solar system. The planet 9 scenario can provide an excellent explanation to the clustering in orbital elements for Kuiper Belt objects. However, no optical counterpart has been observed so far to verify the planet 9 scenario. Therefore, some recent studies suggest that planet 9 could be a dark object, such as a primordial black hole. In this article, we show that the probability of capturing large trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) by planet 9 to form a satellite system in the scattered disk region (between the inner Oort cloud and Kuiper Belt) is large. By adopting a benchmark model of planet 9, we show that the tidal effect can heat up the satellites significantly, which can give sufficient thermal radio flux for observations, even if planet 9 is a dark object. This provides a new indirect way for examining the planet 9 hypothesis and revealing the basic properties of planet 9.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2022

Indirect Evidence for Dark Matter Density Spikes around Stellar-Mass Black Holes

It has been suggested for a long time that dark matter would form a density spike around a black hole. However, no promising evidence has been observed so far to verify this theoretical suggestion. Here, we report the existence of a dark matter density spike around each of the two nearby stellar-mass black holes (A0620-00 and XTE J1118+480). The dynamical friction between dark matter and the companion stars can satisfactorily explain the abnormally fast orbital decays in the two binaries. The calculated spike index for A0620-00 and XTE J1118+480 are $γ=1.71^{+0.01}_{-0.02}$ and $γ=1.85^{+0.04}_{-0.04}$ respectively, which are close to the lower regime predicted by the stellar heating model. It may provide a possible indirect evidence for the existence of dark matter density spikes around stellar-mass black holes. We anticipate that analyzing observational data of nearby black hole X-ray binaries would be a new way to reveal the nature of dark matter.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

Crossing the dark matter soliton core: a possible reversed orbital precession

The ultra-light dark matter (ULDM) model has become a popular dark matter scenario nowadays. The mass of the ULDM particles is extremely small so that they can exhibit wave properties in the central dark matter halo region. Numerical simulations show that a soliton core with an almost constant mass density would be formed inside the ULDM halo. If our Galactic Centre has a dark matter soliton core, some of the stars orbiting about the supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) would be crossing the soliton core boundary. In this article, we report the first theoretical study on how the dark matter soliton core near the Sgr A* could affect the surrounding stellar orbital precession. We show that some particular stellar orbital precession may become retrograde in direction, which is opposite to the prograde direction predicted by General Relativity. We anticipate that future orbital data of the stars S2, S12 and S4716 can provide crucial tests for the ULDM model for $m \sim 10^{-19}-10^{-17}$ eV.

astro-ph.GA↗