Lux ex tenebris: The imprint of annihilating dark matter on the intergalactic medium during Cosmic Dawn
Florian List, Pascal J. Elahi, and Geraint F. Lewis

TL;DR
This paper investigates how annihilating dark matter particles influence the intergalactic medium during Cosmic Dawn, using hydrodynamic simulations to predict potential observable effects on the 21cm signal.
Contribution
First hydrodynamic simulation study examining the impact of dark matter annihilation on the IGM during Cosmic Dawn, highlighting effects of GeV-scale DM on the 21cm signal.
Findings
DM annihilation affects IGM heating at GeV scales
Structure formation remains unaffected by heavy WIMPs
Low density regions are most sensitive to DM heating
Abstract
Upcoming measurements of the highly redshifted 21cm line with next-generation radio telescopes such as HERA and SKA will provide the intriguing opportunity to probe dark matter (DM) physics during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), Cosmic Dawn, and the Dark Ages. With HERA already under construction, there is a pressing need to thoroughly understand the impact of DM physics on the intergalactic medium (IGM) during these epochs. We present first results of a hydrodynamic simulation suite with particles in a box with DM annihilation and baryonic cooling physics. We focus on redshift , just before reionization starts in our simulations, and discuss the imprint of DM annihilation on the IGM and on structure formation. We find that whereas structure formation is not affected by thermal WIMPs heavier than $m_\chi \gtrsim 100 \…
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