Decaying axinolike dark matter: Discriminative solution to small-scale issues

Abstract

The latest Lyman-α forest data severely constrain the conventional warm dark matter solution to small-scale issues in the cold dark matter paradigm. It has been also reported that unconstrained astrophysical processes may address the issues. In response to this situation, we revisit the decaying dark matter solution to the issues, discussing possible signatures to discriminate decaying dark matter from astrophysical processes as a solution to small-scale issues. We consider an axinolike particle (ALPino) decaying into an axionlike particle (ALP) and gravitino with the lifetime around the age of the Universe. The ALPino mass is sub-PeV and slightly (Δm/m∼10-4) larger than the gravitino mass, and thus the dark matter abundance does not alter virtually after the ALPino decays. On the other hand, the gravitino produced from the ALPino decay obtains a kick velocity of ∼30 km/s, which is sufficiently larger than a circular velocity of dwarf galaxies to impact their dark matter distributions. The Lyman-α forest constraints are relieved since only a small fraction (∼10%) of dark matter experiences the decay at that time. Decaying dark matter is thus promoted to a viable solution to small-scale issues. The ALPino relic abundance is determined predominantly by the decay of the lightest ordinary supersymmetric particle. The monochromatic ALP emission from the ALPino decay is converted to ∼50 GeV photon under the Galactic magnetic field. The morphology of the gamma-ray flux shows a distinctive feature of the model when compared to decaying dark matter that directly decays into photons. Once detected, such distinctive signals discriminate the decaying dark matter solution to small-scale issues from unconstrained astrophysical processes. © 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society