Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way Satellites

TL;DR

This study uses N-body simulations of Milky Way-sized halos to set lower limits on dark matter particle mass based on satellite galaxy counts, with implications for various dark matter models and future surveys.

Contribution

It provides new lower bounds on dark matter particle mass derived from satellite counts, linking simulations with observational data and future survey prospects.

Findings

Lower limits on sterile neutrino mass: >13.3 keV (Dodelson-Widrow)

Constraints comparable to Lyman-alpha and X-ray methods

Future surveys could tighten these constraints significantly.

Abstract

We have conducted N-body simulations of the growth of Milky Way-sized halos in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies. The number of dark matter satellites in our simulated Milky Ways decreases with decreasing mass of the dark matter particle. Assuming that the number of dark matter satellites exceeds or equals the number of observed satellites of the Milky Way we derive lower limits on the dark matter particle mass. We find with 95% confidence m_s > 13.3 keV for a sterile neutrino produced by the Dodelson and Widrow mechanism, m_s > 8.9 keV for the Shi and Fuller mechanism, m_s > 3.0 keV for the Higgs decay mechanism, and m_{WDM} > 2.3 keV for a thermal dark matter particle. The recent discovery of many new dark matter dominated satellites of the Milky Way in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey allows us to set lower limits comparable to constraints from the complementary methods of Lyman-alpha forest modeling and X-ray observations of the unresolved cosmic X-ray background and of dark matter halos from dwarf galaxy to cluster scales. Future surveys like LSST, DES, PanSTARRS, and SkyMapper have the potential to discover many more satellites and further improve constraints on the dark matter particle mass.