학술논문
JWST Lensed quasar dark matter survey II: Strongest gravitational lensing limit on the dark matter free streaming length to date
Document Type
Working Paper
Author
Keeley, Ryan E.; Nierenberg, Anna M.; Gilman, Daniel; Gannon, Charles; Birrer, Simon; Treu, Tommaso; Benson, Andrew J.; Du, Xiaolong; Abazajian, K. N.; Anguita, T.; Bennert, V. N.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Gupta, K. K.; Hoenig, S. F.; Kusenko, A.; Lemon, C.; Malkan, M.; Motta, V.; Moustakas, L. A.; Oh, M. S. H.; Sluse, D.; Stern, D.; Wechsler, R. H.
Source
Subject
Language
Abstract
This is the second in a series of papers in which we use JWST MIRI multiband imaging to measure the warm dust emission in a sample of 31 multiply imaged quasars, to be used as a probe of the particle nature of dark matter. We present measurements of the relative magnifications of the strongly lensed warm dust emission in a sample of 9 systems. The warm dust region is compact and sensitive to perturbations by populations of halos down to masses $\sim 10^6$ M$_{\odot}$. Using these warm dust flux-ratio measurements in combination with 5 previous narrow-line flux-ratio measurements, we constrain the halo mass function. In our model, we allow for complex deflector macromodels with flexible third and fourth-order multipole deviations from ellipticity, and we introduce an improved model of the tidal evolution of subhalos. We constrain a WDM model and find an upper limit on the half-mode mass of $10^{7.6} M_\odot$ at posterior odds of 10:1. This corresponds to a lower limit on a thermally produced dark matter particle mass of 6.1 keV. This is the strongest gravitational lensing constraint to date, and comparable to those from independent probes such as the Ly$\alpha$ forest and Milky Way satellite galaxies.