Papers › Bounds on velocity-dependent dark matter-proton scattering from Milky Way satellite abundance
Bounds on velocity-dependent dark matter-proton scattering from Milky Way satellite abundance
Karime Maamari, Vera Gluscevic, Kimberly K. Boddy, Ethan O. Nadler, Risa H. Wechsler
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We use the latest measurements of the Milky Way satellite population from the Dark Energy Survey and Pan-STARRS1 to infer the most stringent astrophysical bound to date on velocity-dependent interactions between dark matter particles and protons. We model the momentum-transfer cross section as a power law of the relative particle velocity v with a free normalizing amplitude, σ_(MT)=σ₀ vⁿ, to broadly capture the interactions arising within the non-relativistic effective theory of dark matter-proton scattering. The scattering leads to a momentum and heat transfer between the baryon and dark matter fluids in the early Universe, ultimately erasing structure on small physical scales and reducing the abundance of low-mass halos that host dwarf galaxies today. From the consistency of observations with the cold collisionless dark matter paradigm, using a new method that relies on the most robust predictions of the linear perturbation theory, we infer an upper limit on σ₀ of 1.4×10⁻²³, 2.1×10⁻¹⁹, and 1.0×10⁻¹² cm², for interaction models with n=2,4,6, respectively, for a dark matter particle mass of 10 MeV. These results improve observational limits on dark matter--proton scattering by orders of magnitude and thus provide an important guide for viable sub-GeV dark matter candidates.
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