Diffuse UV Background: GALEX Results

TL;DR

This study uses GALEX UV observations to investigate the origin of the bright UV background, challenging the extragalactic radiation hypothesis and proposing dark matter interactions as a possible source.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence against the extragalactic UV background and suggests a novel dark matter interaction explanation.

Findings

Bright UV background observed in dust-rich and dust-free regions.

Excludes starlight scattering as the primary source.

Proposes dark matter interactions as a potential origin.

Abstract

A bright UV GALEX image in the direction of a dense high galactic latitude interstellar dust cloud is examined to test (and to reject) the idea that a bright extragalactic UV background radiation field exists. A GALEX "Deep Imaging Survey" image of a second high latitude region (a region almost totally free of dust) shows a similar bright background, which, clearly, cannot be due to starlight scattered from interstellar dust. I speculate that the background is due to dark matter particles interacting with interstellar gas/dust nucleons.