Speaker
Description
Milky Way satellite galaxies include some of the oldest, faintest, and most dark matter dominated stellar systems known. By performing a rigorous census of Milky Way satellite galaxies, we are able to extend previous analyses to present novel constraints on a mixed dark matter scenario that contains both cold and warm dark matter components (CWDM). We use the semi-analytical model SASHIMI to obtain the CWDM subhalo suppression function, allowing us to produce simulated subhalos populations for different CWDM scenarios. We then “paint” satellite galaxies onto the subhalos using a galaxy-halo connection model and compare the resulting satellite population to the observed satellite population from the Dark Energy Survey and Pan-STARRS1 to obtain constraints on the fractional abundance of warm dark matter (WDM) as a function of the WDM particle mass. In addition to generic thermal CWDM, we also constrain mixed cold dark matter and sterile neutrino models produced by the Shi-Fuller mechanism. We also briefly describe the potential of future surveys to increase the completeness of the Milky Way satellite census and tighten constraints on mixed dark matter scenarios.
