The impact of dark matter decays and annihilations on the formation of the first structures

Abstract

We derive the effects of DM decays and annihilations on structure formation. We consider moderately massive DM particles (sterile neutrinos and light DM), as they are expected to give the maximum contribution to heating and reionization. The energy injection from DM decays and annihilations produces both an enhancement in the abundance of coolants (H2 and HD) and an increase of gas temperature. We find that for all the considered DM models the critical halo mass for collapse, m_crit, is generally higher than in the unperturbed case. However, the variation of m_crit is small. In the most extreme case, i.e. considering light DM annihilations (decays) and halos virializing at redshift z_vir>10 (z_vir~10), m_crit increases by a factor ~4 (~2). In the case of annihilations the variations of m_crit are also sensitive to the assumed profile of the DM halo. Furthermore, we note that the fraction of gas which is retained inside the halo is substantially reduced (to ~40 per cent of the cosmic value), especially in the smallest halos, as a consequence of the energy injection by DM decays and annihilations.