1 research outputs found
Narrowing the window for millicharged particles by CMB anisotropy
We calculate the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy spectrum in
models with millicharged particles of electric charge q\sim 10^{-6}-10^{-1} in
units of electron charge. We find that a large region of the parameter space
for the millicharged particles exists where their effect on the CMB spectrum is
similar to the effect of baryons. Using WMAP data on the CMB anisotropy and
assuming Big Bang nucleosynthesis value for the baryon abundance we find that
only a small fraction of cold dark matter, Omega_{mcp}h_0^2 < 0.007 (at 95%
CL), may consists of millicharged particles with the parameters (charge and
mass) from this region. This bound significantly narrows the allowed range of
the parameters of millicharged particles. In models without paraphoton
millicharged particles are now excluded as a dark matter candidate. We also
speculate that recent observation of 511 keV gamma-rays from the Galactic bulge
may be an indication that a (small) fraction of CDM is comprised of the
millicharged particles.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; v2: journal version, references adde