Letter to the Editor

SZ effect from Dark Matter annihilation

INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma via Frascati 33, 00040 Monteporzio, Italy e-mail: cola@mporzio.astro.it


Received: 8 April 2004
Accepted: 15 May 2004

Abstract

We derive in this Letter the SZ effect induced by the secondary electrons produced in the annihilation of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (assumed here to be neutralinos) in gravitationally bound structures dominated by Cold Dark Matter (CDM). We show that the DM induced SZ effect has a specific spectral shape and an amplitude which increases for decreasing neutralino mass . The available SZ data on the Coma cluster set an upper limit on the quantity which can be combined with the WMAP constraints on to restrict the available neutralino models in the plane. We delineate various potential applications of this method to constraint the physical properties of the Dark Matter particles from the study of galaxy clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the light of the next coming high-sensitivity SZ experiments.