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Cosmological Simulations with Self-Interacting Dark Matter II: Halo Shapes vs. Observations

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8 Pith papers citing it
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abstract

If dark matter has a large self-interaction scattering cross section, then interactions among dark-matter particles will drive galaxy and cluster halos to become spherical in their centers. Work in the past has used this effect to rule out velocity-independent, elastic cross sections larger than sigma/m ~ 0.02 cm^2/g based on comparisons to the shapes of galaxy cluster lensing potentials and X-ray isophotes. In this paper, we use cosmological simulations to show that these constraints were off by more than an order of magnitude because (a) they did not properly account for the fact that the observed ellipticity gets contributions from the triaxial mass distribution outside the core set by scatterings, (b) the scatter in axis ratios is large and (c) the core region retains more of its triaxial nature than estimated before. Including these effects properly shows that the same observations now allow dark matter self-interaction cross sections at least as large as sigma/m = 0.1 cm^2/g. We show that constraints on self-interacting dark matter from strong-lensing clusters are likely to improve significantly in the near future, but possibly more via central densities and core sizes than halo shapes.

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UNVERDICTED 8

representative citing papers

Axion-Like Electrophilic Portal for Pion Dark Matter

hep-ph · 2026-02-02 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

A minimal electrophilic ALP portal for SIMP pion dark matter widens the allowed parameter space, making an ALP mass of order 10 MeV viable and consistent with the X17 anomaly.

The Dark Photon

hep-ph · 2020-05-04 · unverdicted · novelty 2.0

The paper surveys theoretical motivations, experimental searches, and bounds on the dark photon as a kinetically mixed gauge boson from a dark sector, covering both massive and massless cases along with related milli-charged fermion constraints.

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