A small amount of mini-charged dark matter could cool the baryons in the early Universe

Nature
Julian B Muñoz, Abraham Loeb

Abstract

The dynamics of our Universe is strongly influenced by pervasive-albeit elusive-dark matter, with a total mass about five times the mass of all the baryons1,2. Despite this, its origin and composition remain a mystery. All evidence for dark matter relies on its gravitational pull on baryons, and thus such evidence does not require any non-gravitational coupling between baryons and dark matter. Nonetheless, some small coupling would explain the comparable cosmic abundances of dark matter and baryons 3 , as well as solving structure-formation puzzles in the pure cold-dark-matter models 4 . A vast array of observations has been unable to find conclusive evidence for any non-gravitational interactions of baryons with dark matter5-9. Recent observations by the EDGES collaboration, however, suggest that during the cosmic dawn, roughly 200 million years after the Big Bang, the baryonic temperature was half of its expected value 10 . This observation is difficult to reconcile with the standard cosmological model but could be explained if baryons are cooled down by interactions with dark matter, as expected if their interaction rate grows steeply at low velocities 11 . Here we report that if a small fraction-less than one per cent-of th...Continue Reading

References

Mar 16, 1987·Physical Review Letters·C W StubbsR Watanabe
Feb 10, 1992·Physical Review Letters·D B Kaplan
Jan 12, 2011·Clinica Chimica Acta; International Journal of Clinical Chemistry·A K SaengerA S Jaffe
Aug 22, 2015·Physical Review Letters·Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo, Joshua T Ruderman
Jul 12, 2017·Physical Review Letters·D S AkeribUNKNOWN LUX Collaboration

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Citations

Mar 9, 2019·Physical Review Letters·Gabriel MagillYu-Dai Tsai
Oct 13, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Amit BhoonahSarah Schon
Aug 8, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Maxim PospelovAlfredo Urbano
Feb 16, 2019·Physical Review Letters·Roland de PutterJoel Meyers
Aug 18, 2018·Physical Review Letters·R AgneseX Zhao
Oct 9, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Julian B MuñozAbraham Loeb
Aug 25, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Michael CrislerUNKNOWN SENSEI Collaboration
Sep 29, 2018·Physical Review Letters·Nick HoustonXin Zhang
Nov 24, 2020·Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·L K Morabito, J Silk
Jul 17, 2021·Physical Review Letters·Andrea CaputoAlfredo Urbano

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