Probing Self-Interacting Dark Matter via Gravitational-Wave Background from Eccentric Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

TL;DR

This paper explores how self-interacting dark matter influences gravitational waves from supermassive black hole mergers, showing current pulsar timing arrays can constrain dark matter properties and emphasizing the role of orbital eccentricity.

Contribution

It introduces a refined model linking SIDM effects to gravitational-wave background spectra and demonstrates PTA data's sensitivity to SIDM cross sections, considering orbital eccentricity effects.

Findings

PTA data constrains SIDM cross section to $\sigma(v)/m_ ext{\chi} \lesssim 0.66$ cm$^2$/g.

Including eccentricity significantly impacts parameter inference.

PTAs have promising potential to probe dark matter properties.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter is still mysterious despite various astronomical evidence. As a possible candidate, self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) can potentially resolve some issues appearing in cold dark matter paradigm. Here we investigate how SIDM around supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centers may form a density spike and imprint in the spectrum shape of stochastic gravitational-wave background from SMBH binaries (SMBHBs). Employing a refined dynamical friction formula and consistently evolving the orbital dynamics, we demonstrate that current pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) data is sensitive to the cross section of SIDM with $\sigma(v)/m_\chi\lesssim0.66\,\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{g}$, comparable to other astrophysical probes. We also highlight the importance of including the eccentricity of SMBHBs in the parameter inference, which would affect the results significantly. Our findings reveal the promising potential of PTAs observations in probing the nature of dark matter.