- May 3, 2021, 2:00 pm US/Central
- José Luis Bernal,, John Hopkins
Abstract: Line-intensity mapping (LIM) experiments use the integrated intensity at a given frequency, targeting well-known spectral lines to infer the redshift of the signal and build three-dimensional maps of cosmic volumes. Since these surveys exploit the information from all incoming photons, they have the potential to directly observe the electromagnetic radiation produced in exotic radiative decays, as it would be the case of decaying dark matter or decays of neutrinos in the cosmic neutrino background. In both cases, the exotic radiation will be detected as a line interloper of astrophysical spectral lines. I will discuss realistic and efficient strategies to detect radiative products from exotic decays from a phenomenological approach, focusing on the LIM power spectrum and the voxel intensity distribution, with an extra anisotropy and a narrowing and a shift of the distribution towards higher intensities as the most significant signatures, respectively. I will show forecast sensitivities for the specific cases of axion dark matter decays and neutrino decays, discussing implications and comparisons with alternative methods, and highlighting the promise of LIM to contribute to indirect dark matter searches and studies of the neutrino properties.
For more information, please contact Yu-Dai Tsai at ytsaiATfnal.gov.