Speaker
Description
Current and upcoming 21-cm measurements during the cosmic dawn can provide a new arena on the search for the cosmological dark matter. This era saw the formation of the first stars, which coupled the spin temperature of hydrogen to its kinetic temperature---producing 21-cm absorption in the CMB. The strength of this absorption acts as a thermostat, showing us if the baryons have been cooled down or heated up by different processes. In particular, during the cosmic dawn, the baryon-dark matter fluid is the slowest it will ever be, making it ideal to search for dark matter elastically scattering with baryons through massless mediators, such as the photon. I will describe how dark-matter particles with an electric millicharge can significantly alter the baryonic temperature, and thus explain the anomalous 21-cm depth observed by the EDGES collaboration.
