Speaker
Yacine Ali-Haimoud
(New York University)
Description
Possible interactions of dark matter (DM) with Standard Model (SM) particles can be tested with spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In particular, a non-relativistic DM particle that scatters elastically with photons, electrons or nuclei imprints a negative chemical potential μ to the CMB spectrum, as I will explain in this talk. I will show how this effect can be used to derive upper bounds to the DM-SM elastic-scattering cross section for DM masses mχ≲0.1 MeV, from the non-detection of μ-distortions by FIRAS, and forecast the sensitivity of future spectral distortion measurements. As a specific example, I will discuss the sensitivity of spectral distortions to the electric and magnetic dipole moments of DM.
Primary author
Yacine Ali-Haimoud
(New York University)
