The 21-cm absorption lines from neutral hydrogen at cosmic dawn are proposed as a probe to simultaneously study dark matter particle mass and cosmic heating history. By applying a statistical approach to simulated data this probe is shown to distinguish the effects of dark matter from those of cosmic heating.
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References
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This is a summary of: Shao, Y. et al. The 21-cm forest as a simultaneous probe of dark matter and cosmic heating history. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02024-7 (2023).
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The 21-cm forest can be used to probe both dark matter and the first galaxies. Nat Astron 7, 1019–1020 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02025-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02025-6