1. MINOT: Modeling the intracluster medium (non-)thermal content and observable prediction toolsRémi Adam, Hazal Gosku, A. Leingärtner-Goth, Steffano Ettori, R. Gnatyk, B. Hnatyk, Moritz Hütten, Judit Pérez Romero, Miguel Sánchez-Conde, Olga Sergijenko, original scientific article Abstract: In the past decade, the observations of diffuse radio synchrotron emission toward galaxy clusters revealed cosmic-ray (CR) electrons and magnetic fields on megaparsec scales. However, their origin remains poorly understood to date, and several models have been discussed in the literature. CR protons are also expected to accumulate during the formation of clusters and probably contribute to the production of these high-energy electrons. In order to understand the physics of CRs in clusters, combining of observations at various wavelengths is particularly relevant. The exploitation of such data requires using a self-consistent approach including both the thermal and the nonthermal components, so that it is capable of predicting observables associated with the multiwavelength probes at play, in particular in the radio, millimeter, X-ray, and γ-ray bands. We develop and describe such a self-consistent modeling framework, called MINOT (modeling the intracluster medium (non-)thermal content and observable prediction tools) and make this tool available to the community. MINOT models the intracluster diffuse components of a cluster (thermal and nonthermal) as spherically symmetric. It therefore focuses on CRs associated with radio halos. The spectral properties of the cluster CRs are also modeled using various possible approaches. All the thermodynamic properties of a cluster can be computed self-consistently, and the particle physics interactions at play are processed using a framework based on the Naima software. The multiwavelength observables (spectra, profiles, flux, and images) are computed based on the relevant physical process, according to the cluster location (sky and redshift), and based on the sampling defined by the user. With a standard personal computer, the computing time for most cases is far shorter than one second and it can reach about one second for the most complex models. This makes MINOT suitable for instance for Monte Carlo analyses. We describe the implementation of MINOT and how to use it. We also discuss the different assumptions and approximations that are involved and provide various examples regarding the production of output products at different wavelengths. As an illustration, we model the clusters Abell 1795, Abell 2142, and Abell 2255 and compare the MINOT predictions to literature data. While MINOT was originally build to simulate and model data in the γ-ray band, it can be used to model the cluster thermal and nonthermal physical processes for a wide variety of datasets in the radio, millimeter, X-ray, and γ-ray bands, as well as the neutrino emission. Keywords: galaxy clusters, intracluster medium, cosmic rays, radiation mechanisms, numerical methods Published in RUNG: 27.01.2023; Views: 1669; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |
2. Classification of gamma-ray targets for velocity-dependent and subhalo-boosted dark-matter annihilationThomas Lacroix, Gaetán Facchinetti, Judit Pérez Romero, Martin Stref, Julien Lavalle, David Maurin, Miguel Sánchez-Conde, original scientific article Abstract: Gamma-ray observations have long been used to constrain the properties of dark matter (DM), with a strong focus on weakly interacting massive particles annihilating through velocity-independent processes. However, in the absence of clear-cut observational evidence for the simplest candidates, the interest of the community in more complex DM scenarios involving a velocity-dependent cross-section has been growing steadily over the past few years. We present the first systematic study of velocity-dependent DM annihilation (in particular p-wave annihilation and Sommerfeld enhancement) in a variety of astrophysical objects, not only including the well-studied Milky Way dwarf satellite galaxies, but nearby dwarf irregular galaxies and local galaxy clusters as well. Particular attention is given to the interplay between velocity dependence and DM halo substructure. Uncertainties related to halo mass, phase-space and substructure modelling are also discussed in this velocity-dependent context. We show that, for s-wave annihilation, extremely large subhalo boost factors are to be expected, up to 10^11 in clusters and up to 10^6–10^7 in dwarf galaxies where subhalos are usually assumed not to play an important role. Boost factors for p-wave annihilation are smaller but can still reach 10^3 in clusters. The angular extension of the DM signal is also significantly impacted, with e.g. the cluster typical emission radius increasing by a factor of order 10 in the s-wave case. We also compute the signal contrast of the objects in our sample with respect to annihilation happening in the Milky Way halo. Overall, we find that the hierarchy between the brightest considered targets depends on the specific details of the assumed particle-physics model. Keywords: dark matter theory, dwarf galaxies, galaxy clusters, gamma-ray theory Published in RUNG: 27.01.2023; Views: 1897; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |
3. Spatial extension of dark subhalos as seen by Fermi-LAT and the implications for WIMP constraintsJavier Coronado-Blázquez, Miguel Sánchez-Conde, Judit Pérez Romero, Alejandra Aguirre-Santaella, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: Spatial extension has been hailed as a “smoking gun” in the gamma-ray search of dark galactic subhalos, which would appear as unidentified sources for gamma-ray telescopes. In this work, we study the sensitivity of the Fermi-LAT to extended subhalos using simulated data based on a realistic sky model. We simulate spatial templates for a set of representative subhalos, whose parameters were derived from our previous work with N-body cosmological simulation data. We find that detecting an extended subhalo and finding an unequivocal signal of angular extension requires, respectively, a flux 2 to 10 times larger than in the case of a pointlike source. By studying a large grid of models, where parameters such as the WIMP mass, annihilation channel, or subhalo model are varied significantly, we obtain the response of the LAT as a function of the product of annihilation cross-section times the J-factor. Indeed, we show that spatial extension can be used as an additional “filter” to reject subhalos candidates among the pool of unidentified LAT sources, as well as a smoking gun for positive identification. For instance, typical angular extensions of a few tenths of a degree are expected for the considered scenarios. Finally, we also study the impact of the obtained LAT sensitivity to such extended subhalos on the achievable dark matter constraints, which are a few times less constraining than comparable point-source limits. Keywords: dark matter, cosmic rays and astroparticles, gamma-ray astronomy, particle astrophysics, particle dark matter Published in RUNG: 26.01.2023; Views: 2471; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |
4. Dark matter search in dwarf irregular galaxies with the Fermi Large Area TelescopeViviana Gammaldi, Judit Pérez Romero, Javier Coronado-Blázquez, Mattia di Mauro, Ekaterina Karukes, Miguel Sánchez-Conde, Paolo Salucci, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: We analyze 11 years of Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) data corresponding to the sky regions of seven dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxies. DIrrs are dark matter (DM)-dominated systems, proposed as interesting targets for the indirect search of DM with gamma rays. The galaxies represent interesting cases with a strong disagreement between the density profiles (core versus cusp) inferred from observations and numerical simulations. In this work, we addressed the problem by considering two different DM profiles, based on both the fit to the rotation curve (in this case, a Burkert cored profile) and results from N-body cosmological simulations (i.e., Navarro-Frenk-White cuspy profile). We also include halo substructure in our analysis, which is expected to boost the DM signal by a factor of 10 in halos such as those of dIrrs. For each DM model and dIrr, we create a spatial template of the expected DM-induced gamma-ray signal to be used in the analysis of Fermi-LAT data. No significant emission is detected from any of the targets in our sample. Thus, we compute upper limits on the DM annihilation cross section versus mass parameter space.
Among the seven dIrrs, we find IC10 and NGC6822 to yield the most stringent individual constraints, independently of the adopted DM profile. We also produce combined DM limits for all objects in the sample, which turn out to be dominated by IC10 for all DM models and annihilation channels, i.e., b¯b, τ+τ−, and W+W−. The strongest constraints are obtained for b¯b and are at the level of <σv>∼7×10−26 cm3 s−1 at mχ ∼ 6 GeV. Though these limits are a factor of ∼3 higher than the thermal relic cross section at low weakly interacting massive particles masses, they are independent from and complementary to those obtained by means of other targets. Keywords: Dark matter, gamma-ray astronomy, galaxies, astronomical masses and mass distributions Published in RUNG: 26.01.2023; Views: 1684; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |
5. Evaluation of commercially available ferrites for solar hydrogen production by two-step water splitting thermochemical cyclesFernando Fresno, Rocío Fernández-Saavedra, M. Belén Gómez-Mancebo, Miguel Sánchez, M. Isabel Rucandio, Alberto J. Quejido, Manuel Romero, 2008, published scientific conference contribution abstract Keywords: železo, vodik, sončna energija, termokemični cikli Published in RUNG: 15.10.2013; Views: 8250; Downloads: 39 Link to full text |