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Unidentified Line in X-Ray Spectra of the Andromeda Galaxy and Perseus Galaxy Cluster

2014; American Physical Society; Volume: 113; Issue: 25 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.113.251301

1092-0145

Alexey Boyarsky, Oleg Ruchayskiy, Dmytro Iakubovskyi, J. Franse,

Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies

We report a weak line at 3.52±0.02 keV in x-ray spectra of the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster observed by the metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) and p-n (PN) CCD cameras of the XMM-Newton telescope. This line is not known as an atomic line in the spectra of galaxies or clusters. It becomes stronger towards the centers of the objects; is stronger for Perseus than for M31; is absent in the spectrum of a deep "blank sky" data set. Although for each object it is hard to exclude that the feature is due to an instrumental effect or an atomic line, it is consistent with the behavior of a dark matter decay line. Future (non-)detections of this line in multiple objects may help to reveal its nature.Received 28 February 2014DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.251301© 2014 American Physical Society