A general approach for testing non-cold dark matter at small cosmological scales

TL;DR

This paper introduces a versatile method to model small-scale suppression in the matter power spectrum caused by non-cold dark matter, enabling broad testing of various scenarios and setting the stage for comprehensive data analysis.

Contribution

A new parametrisation that accurately models diverse non-thermal dark matter scenarios, simplifying the testing process without needing individual case analysis.

Findings

First astrophysical constraints on the model parameters

Demonstrated the parametrisation's accuracy across multiple scenarios

Outlined steps for full statistical data analysis

Abstract

We present a general approach for modelling the small-scale suppression in the linear matter power spectrum induced by the presence of non-cold dark matter. We show that the new parametrisation accurately describes a large variety of non-thermal scenarios, removing the need to individually test each of them. We discuss the first astrophysical constraints on its free parameters and we outline the next steps for pursuing a full statistical data analysis.