Constraining axion and compact dark matter with interstellar medium heating

Cold interstellar gas systems have been used to constrain dark matter (DM) models by the condition that the heating rate from DM must be lower than the astrophysical cooling rate of the gas. Following the methodology of Wadekar and Farrar (2021), we use the interstellar medium of a gas-rich dwarf galaxy, Leo T, and a Milky Way-environment gas cloud, G33.4-8.0 to constrain DM. Leo T is a particularly strong system as its gas can have the lowest cooling rate among all the objects in the late Universe (owing to the low volume density and metallicity of the gas). Milky Way clouds, in some cases, provide complementary limits as the DM-gas relative velocity in them is much larger than that in Leo T. We derive constraints on the following scenarios in which DM can heat the gas: $(i)$ interaction of axions with hydrogen atoms or free electrons in the gas, $(ii)$ deceleration of relic magnetically charged DM in gas plasma, $(iii)$ dynamical friction from compact DM, $(iv)$ hard sphere scattering of composite DM with gas. Our limits are complementary to DM direct detection searches. Detection of more gas-rich low-mass dwarfs like Leo T from upcoming 21cm and optical surveys can improve our bounds.