Impact of astrophysical effects on the dark matter mass constraint with 21cm intensity mapping

Abstract

We present an innovative approach to constraining the non-cold dark matter model using a convolutional neural network (CNN). We perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations with varying dark matter particle masses and generate mock 21cm radio intensity maps to trace the dark matter distribution. Our proposed method complements the traditional power spectrum analysis. We compare our CNN classification results with those from the power spectrum of the differential brightness temperature map of 21cm radiation, and find that the CNN outperforms the latter. Moreover, we investigate the impact of baryonic physics on the dark matter model constraint, including star formation, self-shielding of HI gas, and UV background model. We find that these effects may introduce some contamination in the dark matter constraint, but they are insignificant when compared to the realistic system noise of the SKA instruments.