Chandra X-ray Telescope Sheds Some Light on Dark Matter Neutrinos
In a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, available online now here, astronomers report on results obtained using the Chandra x-ray telescope observations of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy called Willman 1. The observations represent more than 97,000 seconds (~27 hours) of observing time. The point of the investigation was to search for evidence of a particular “emission line from sterile neutrino radiative decay.” As the authors put it, “the motivation for considering the sterile neutrino” is that it is “one of a number of feasible dark-matter candidates.” Although still open to verification and other interpretations, the evidence presented does agree with the models using these so-called “sterile neutrinos” as a major component of dark matter.