In recent months, much excitement has been generated in the scientific communityby the detection of an X-ray line at 3.5keV in galaxy clusters, M31, and theGalactic Center that is consistent with a decay product of light dark matter. Itis very difficult to explain the properties of this line across all of thesetargets consistently with any known atomic transition line or instrumentalanomaly. An important check on the nature of this signal may be obtained byobserving classical dwarf spheroidals, which are strongly dark matter dominatedand contain very little, if any, hot gas. We thus propose a 1.3Msec observationof the Draco dwarf galaxy, which we show to be a sufficient exposure to eitherdetect a dark matter decay line or robustly exclude the dark matter hypothesis.
Instrument
EMOS1, EMOS2, EPN, OM, RGS1, RGS2
Temporal Coverage
2015-04-27T06:04:41Z/2015-10-14T06:49:21Z
Version
17.56_20190403_1200
Mission Description
The European Space Agencys (ESA) X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) was launched by an Ariane 504 on December 10th 1999. XMM-Newton is ESAs second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 Science Programme. It carries 3 high throughput X-ray telescopes with an unprecedented effective area, and an optical monitor, the first flown on a X-ray observatory. The large collecting area and ability to make long uninterrupted exposures provide highly sensitive observations. Since Earths atmosphere blocks out all X-rays, only a telescope in space can detect and study celestial X-ray sources. The XMM-Newton mission is helping scientists to solve a number of cosmic mysteries, ranging from the enigmatic black holes to the origins of the Universe itself. Observing time on XMM-Newton is being made available to the scientific community, applying for observational periods on a competitive basis.
European Space Agency, Prof Alexey Boyarsky, 2015, 'Probing the Dark Matter Nature of the 3.5 keV Line with Draco', 17.56_20190403_1200, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-e4bn6gt
