Checking the dark matter origin of 3.53 keV line with the Milky Way center

TL;DR

This study detects a 3.539 keV line in the Galactic Center with XMM-Newton, supporting the dark matter decay hypothesis, but cannot exclude astrophysical origins, emphasizing the need for further observations.

Contribution

It provides the first detection of the 3.539 keV line in the Galactic Center consistent with dark matter decay models, offering a crucial consistency check.

Findings

Detected line at 3.539 keV in Galactic Center data

Line intensity consistent with dark matter decay models

Results support further observational tests

Abstract

We detect a line at 3.539 +/- 0.011 keV in the deep exposure dataset of the Galactic Center region, observed with the XMM-Newton. The dark matter interpretation of the signal observed in the Perseus galaxy cluster, the Andromeda galaxy [1402.4119] and in the stacked spectra of galaxy clusters [1402.2301], together with non-observation of the line in blank sky data, put both lower and upper limits on the possible intensity of the line in the Galactic Center data. Our result is consistent with these constraints for a class of Milky Way mass models, presented previously by observers, and would correspond to radiative decay dark matter lifetime tau_dm ~ (6-8) x 10^{27} sec. Although it is hard to exclude an astrophysical origin of this line based the Galactic Center data alone, this is an important consistency check of the hypothesis that encourages to check it with more observational data that are expected by the end of 2015.