Wave-optics interference in strongly lensed gravitational waves is a new interferometric probe of dark matter substructure: a subhalo population threading a galaxy-scale lens imprints frequency-dependent distortions on the amplification factor of each macro image. In a companion paper (arXiv:2603.04267), we computed these imprints for the magnified minimum image. Here, we extend the calculation to the saddle-point image and we assess the detectability of the combined signal with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Evaluating the amplification factor at a saddle is numerically delicate, because the equal-arrival-time contours are open and the subhalo signal is a small difference of large terms; we present a time-domain method that resolves it. Across a Monte Carlo ensemble of cold dark matter subhalo realizations, subhalos induce percent-level amplitude and phase modulations in both image parities, while the mean (de)magnification splits by parity: the minimum is net magnified and the saddle net demagnified. Demodulating the macro-image interference recovers the per-image modulations, and a matched-filter analysis that projects out the lens parameters yields a combined detection above 5σ in 62% of realizations for fiducial massive-black-hole-binary sources of total mass ∼10^6 M_⊙ at redshift 1.5, provided the source lies close to the lens caustic at small impact parameter y_ src≲0.1. Folding these naive per-event significances through optimistic strong-lensing rate forecasts yields 10-20 substructure detections over the LISA mission. Strongly lensed gravitational waves are thus a sensitive, complementary probe of substructure at 10^4-10^7 M_⊙ scales inaccessible to electromagnetic observations.

Recent simulations have identified long-lived “prompt cusps” – compact remnants of early density peaks with inner profiles ρ∝ r^-3/2. They can survive hierarchical assembly and potentially enhance signals of dark matter annihilation. In this work, we incorporate prompt cusps into the semi-analytic substructure framework SASHIMI, enabling a fully hierarchical, environment-dependent calculation of the annihilation luminosity that consistently tracks subhalos, sub-subhalos, and tidal stripping. We assign prompt cusps to first-generation microhalos and propagate their survival through the merger history, including an explicit treatment of cusps associated with stripped substructure. We find that the substructure hierarchy converges rapidly once a few levels are included, and that prompt cusps can raise the total annihilation boost of Milky-Way–size hosts at z=0 to B∼ 50 for fiducial cusp-occupation assumptions, compared to a subhalo-only baseline of B_ sh∼few. Across a wide range of host masses and redshifts, prompt cusps increase the normalization of B(M_ host,z) while largely preserving its mass and redshift trends. Compared to universal-average, peak-based estimates, our fiducial boosts are lower by about a factor of a few, primarily reflecting a correspondingly smaller inferred cusp abundance in host halos, highlighting the importance of unifying peak-based cusp formation with merger-tree evolution and environmental dependence.

We investigate how the primordial curvature perturbation of a certain wavelength scale affects the halo and subhalo structure. Primordial power spectrum considered in this paper features a nearly scale-invariant form with a cutoff at the wavenumber k = 𝒪(1)Mpc^-1 and an additional log-normal bump at smaller scales. We compute the host halo evolution, as well as the subhalo mass function. To be consistent with the observations of stellar streams and gravitational lensing data, the amplitude of the bump that is typically the same or larger than 10^-9 of the primordial curvature perturbation should be present at the wavenumbers of 10 - 30 Mpc^-1.

Wave-optics effects in strongly lensed gravitational waves (GWs) provide a new interferometric probe of dark matter substructure. We compute the full diffraction integral for GWs propagating through statistically generated cold dark matter subhalo populations and quantify the resulting frequency-dependent amplification in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) band. We show that realistic galaxy-scale lenses generically produce percent-level amplitude and phase distortions in strongly magnified images, primarily induced by subhalos in the mass range $10^4$-$10^7\,M_{\odot}$. These signatures arise naturally within the standard cold dark matter paradigm and should be detectable in high signal-to-noise LISA events. Strongly lensed GWs thus offer a direct and complementary window on dark matter structure at subgalactic mass scales inaccessible to electromagnetic measurements.

The anisotropies of the Cosmic Neutrino Background (CνB) offer an ideal tool to test non-standard neutrino interactions, since they directly trace the perturbations in the neutrino distribution function. Here, we study how invisible neutrino decays impact the CνB anisotropies, in a framework where neutrinos decay non-relativistically to dark radiation and lighter neutrinos in a manner consistent with the measured mass splittings. For this purpose, we perform the first implementation of such a late-time neutrino decay scenario within a linear Einstein-Boltzmann solver, and compute the CνB angular power spectra from the Boltzmann hierarchy solutions for a range of lifetimes and decay channels. We find that neutrino decays leave very strong signatures on the CνB angular spectra, about two orders of magnitude larger than on the CMB angular spectra, particularly for lifetimes comparable to the age of the Universe. We show that a future polarized tritium target run of the PTOLEMY experiment, with sufficient counting statistics to measure just the first ∼ 15 multipoles of the neutrino sky map, could test neutrino decay models that remain undetectable with CMB data.

The cold dark matter (CDM) model successfully explains large-scale structure formation, but challenges remain at smaller scales, leading to interest in warm dark matter (WDM) as an alternative. The abundance of Milky Way subhalos depends on the mass of WDM particles, allowing constraints to be obtained by comparing observations and theoretical models. However, high-resolution simulations of heavier WDM particle masses are computationally demanding, making semi-analytical approaches valuable. In this study, we evaluate the ability of the Semi-Analytical Sub-Halo Inference ModelIng for WDM (SASHIMI-W) to reproduce subhalo mass functions for heavier WDM particle masses. We perform high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations for CDM and WDM with particle masses of 1, 3, and 10 keV, and compare the ratio of the subhalo mass function between WDM and CDM cases. Our results show that SASHIMI-W successfully reproduces the simulation results over redshifts z = 0 to z = 2. Furthermore, both simulations and the semi-analytical model show a slight redshift dependence in the subhalo suppression ratio. However, a direct comparison of the differential subhalo mass functions shows discrepancies in the mid- and low-mass regions, suggesting that the tidal stripping effects implemented in SASHIMI-W may be too strong for WDM subhalos, or that the removal of spurious subhalos in the simulations is insufficient. These results validate the use of SASHIMI-W in constraining WDM properties, and highlight the need for refinements in both tidal effect modeling and spurious subhalo filtering to improve subhalo abundance predictions.

Recently, solar gamma rays produced by cosmic rays interacting with the solar atmosphere have been detected in the GeV to TeV energy range, revealing that cosmic rays are significantly affected by magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere. However, much of the observations remain unexplained by existing physical models. Using a semianalytic model, we demonstrate that magnetic fields at and below the photosphere with a large horizontal component could account for the approximately 1 TeV solar gamma rays observed by HAWC. This suggests that high-energy solar gamma rays could serve as a novel probe for magnetic fields beneath the photosphere, which in the future could help improve the understanding of solar magnetism, the key driver of space weather.

Recent James Webb Space Telescope observations of high-redshift massive galaxy candidates have initiated renewed interest in the important mystery around the formation and evolution of our Universe's largest supermassive black holes (SMBHs). We consider the possibility that some of them were seeded by the direct collapse of primordial density perturbations from inflation into primordial black holes and analyze the consequences of this on current dark matter substructures assuming non-Gaussian primordial curvature perturbation distributions. We derive bounds on the enhanced curvature perturbation amplitude from the number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies in our Galaxy, observations of stellar streams and gravitational lensing. We find this bound region significantly overlaps with that required for SMBH seed formation and enables us to probe Gaussian and non-Gaussian curvature perturbations corresponding to the SMBH seeds in the range O(105-1012)M0.

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Telescope (HAWC) has detected TeV halos associated with two nearby pulsars/pulsar wind nebulae (PWN) — Geminga and B0656+14. These TeV halos extend up to tens of pc from the central accelerators, indicating that the diffusion of ultrarelativistic electrons and positrons in the interstellar medium has been suppressed by two orders of magnitude. Although Geminga and B0656+14 are at similar distances and in the same field of view, they have distinct histories. Notably, B0656+14 probably still resides within its parent supernova remnant, the Monogem Ring, which can be observed in X-rays. In this work, we perform high-resolution simulations of the propagation and emission of relativistic lepton pairs around B0656+14 using a two-zone diffusion model using the GALPROP numerical code. We compared the predicted inverse-Compton spectrum to the observations made by HAWC and Fermi-LAT and found physically plausible model parameters that resulted in a good fit to the data. Additionally, we estimated the contribution of this TeV-halo to the positron flux observed on Earth and found it to be smaller than 10 % of the measured flux. We conclude that future observations of the TeV halo and its synchrotron emission counterpart in radio and X-ray frequencies will be crucial to distinguish between various possible models.

We present a numerical treatment of the annual modulation of relic neutrinos due to the Sun's gravitational influence. Extending our previously developed N-1-body simulation framework from Milky Way scales to solar system dynamics, we model how cosmic neutrino background densities might vary throughout Earth's orbital cycle. We validate our numerical approach against analytical expectations from previous studies that assumed idealized relic neutrino populations. Our results suggest that the prior gravitational history of neutrinos traversing asymmetric dark matter distributions can affect annual modulation patterns. While our simulations reproduce modulation amplitudes similar to analytical predictions for heavier neutrinos, we find that the amplitude can vary considerably depending on the specific morphology of dark matter halos. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating realistic structure formation effects when predicting potential observational relic neutrino signatures.

We combine the semi-analytical structure formation model, SASHIMI, which predicts subhalo populations in collisionless, cold dark matter (CDM), with a parametric model that maps CDM halos to self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) halos. The resulting model, SASHIMI-SIDM, generates SIDM subhalo populations down to sub-galactic mass scales, for an arbitrary input cross section, in minutes. We show that SASHIMI-SIDM agrees with SIDM subhalo populations from high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations in resolved regimes. Crucially, we predict that the fraction of core-collapsed subhalos peaks at a mass scale determined by the input SIDM cross section and decreases toward higher halo masses, consistent with the predictions of gravothermal models and cosmological simulations. For the first time, we also show that the core-collapsed fraction decreases toward lower halo masses. While the dependence of the collapse time on mass and concentration implies such behaviour, our semi-analytical approach allows us to quantify and illustrate this trend clearly across the full mass spectrum of subhalos, including for subhalo masses below the resolution limit of any current cosmological SIDM simulation. As a proof of principle, we apply SASHIMI-SIDM to predict the boost to the local dark matter density and annihilation rate from core-collapsed SIDM subhalos, which can be enhanced relative to CDM by an order of magnitude for viable SIDM models. Thus, SASHIMI-SIDM provides an efficient and reliable tool for scanning SIDM parameter space and testing it with astrophysical observations. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/shinichiroando/sashimi-si .

Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) has been proposed to address small-scale challenges faced by the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm, such as the diverse density profiles observed in dwarf galaxies. In this study, we analyze the kinematics of dwarf galaxies by incorporating the effects of gravothermal core collapse into SIDM models using a semi-analytical subhalo framework. Our analysis covers the stellar kinematics of both classical and ultrafaint dwarf galaxies. The results indicate a bimodal preference for small and large self-interaction cross sections in ultrafaint dwarf galaxies, while in classical dwarfs, larger cross sections progressively decrease the model's statistical support. The combined analysis decisively prefers CDM to SIDM when the self-interaction cross section per unit mass, σ/m, exceeds ∼0.2 cm^2/g, if a velocity-independent cross section is assumed. Our study significantly enhances our understanding of dark matter dynamics on small scales.

The magnetic fields that emerge from beneath the solar surface and permeate the solar atmosphere are the key drivers of space weather and, thus, understanding them is important to human society. Direct observations, used to measure magnetic fields, can only probe the magnetic fields in the photosphere and above, far from the regions the magnetic fields are being enhanced by the solar dynamo. Solar gamma rays produced by cosmic rays interacting with the solar atmosphere have been detected from GeV to TeV energy range, and revealed that they are significantly affected by solar magnetic fields. However, much of the observations are yet to be explained by a physical model. Using a semi-analytic model, we show that magnetic fields at and below the photosphere with a large horizontal component could explain the ∼1 TeV solar gamma rays observed by HAWC. This could allow high-energy solar gamma rays to be a novel probe for magnetic fields below the photosphere.

After decoupling, relic neutrinos traverse the evolving gravitational imhomogeneities along their trajectories. Once they turn non-relativistic, this results in a significant amplification of the anisotropies in the cosmic neutrino background (C nu B). Past studies have reconstructed the phase-space distribution of relic neutrinos from the local distribution of matter (accounting for the Milky Way halo and the surrounding large-scale structures), but have neglected the C nu B anisotropies in the initial conditions of neutrino trajectories. Using our previously developed N-1-body simulation framework, we show that including these primordial fluctuations in the initial conditions can be important, as it produces similar effects on the abundance and anisotropies of the C nu B as the inclusion of large-scale structures beyond the Milky Way halo. Interpretability of data from future C nu B observatories like PTOLEMY therefore depends on correctly modelling these effects. GitHub: our jax-accelerated simulation code can be found here.

Core collapse supernovae are among the most powerful explosions in the Universe, which emit thermal neutrinos that carry away most of the gravitational binding energy released. These neutrinos produce a diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), which is one of the largest energy budgets among all radiation backgrounds. Detecting the DSNB is an important goal of modern high-energy astrophysics and particle physics, which provides valuable insights into core collapse modeling, neutrino physics, and cosmic supernova rate history. In this review, the key ingredients of DSNB calculation and what can be learned from future detections, including black hole formation and non-standard neutrino interactions are discussed. Moreover, an overview of the latest updates in neutrino experiments, which could lead to the detection of the DSNB in the next decade, is provided. With the promise of this breakthrough discovery on the horizon, the study of DSNB has great potential to further our understanding of the Universe.

Dark matter halos of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) play important roles in dark matter detection. Generally we estimate the halo profile using a kinematical equation of dSphs but the halo profile has a large uncertainty because we have only a limited number of kinematical dataset. In this paper, we utilize cosmological models of dark matter subhalos to obtain better constraints on halo profile of dSphs. The constraints are realized as two cosmological priors: satellite prior, based on a semi-analytic model of the accretion history of subhalos and their tidal stripping effect, and stellar-to-halo mass relation prior, which estimates halo mass of a galaxy from its stellar mass using empirical correlations. In addition, we adopt a radial dependent likelihood function by considering velocity dispersion profile, which allows us to mitigate the parameter degeneracy in the previous analysis using a radial independent likelihood function with averaged dispersion. Using these priors, we estimate the squared dark matter density integrated over the region-of-interest (so-called $J$-factor) of 8 classical and 27 ultra-faint dSphs. Our method significantly decreases the uncertainty of $J$-factors (upto about $20\%$) compared to the previous radial independent analysis. We confirm the model dependence of $J$-factor estimates by evaluating Bayes factors of different model setups and find that the estimates are still stable even when assuming different cosmological models.

The elastic scattering between dark matter (DM) and radiation can potentially explain small-scale observations that the cold dark matter faces as a challenge, as damping density fluctuations via dark acoustic oscillations in the early universe erases small-scale structure. We study a semi-analytical subhalo model for interacting dark matter with radiation, based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism and subhalos' tidal evolution prescription. We also test the elastic scattering between DM and neutrinos using observations of Milky-Way satellites from the Dark Energy Survey and PanSTARRS1. We conservatively impose strong constraints on the DM-neutrino scattering cross section of σ DM–ν,n ∝ E n ν ( n = 0,2,4) at 95% confidence level (CL), σ DM–ν,0 < 10 -32 cm 2 ( m DM / GeV), σ DM–ν,2 < 10 -43 cm 2 ( m DM / GeV)( E ν / E ν 0 ) 2 and σ DM–ν,4 < 10 -54 cm 2 ( m DM /GeV)( E ν / E ν 0 ) 4 , where E ν 0 is the neutrino energy and E ν 0 is the average momentum of relic cosmic neutrinos today, E ν 0 ≃ 6.1 K. By imposing a satellite forming condition, we obtain the strongest upper bounds on the DM-neutrino cross section at 95% CL, σ DM–ν,0 < 4 × 10 -34 cm 2 ( m DM / GeV), σ DM–ν,2 < 10 -46 cm 2 ( m DM / GeV)( E ν / E ν 0 ) 2 and σ DM–ν,4 < 7 × 10 -59 cm 2 ( m DM /GeV)( E ν / E ν 0 ) 4 .

Gravitational potentials of the Milky Way and extragalactic structures can influence the propagation of the cosmic neutrino background (CNB). Of particular interest to future CNB observatories, such as PTOLEMY, is the CNB number density on Earth. In this study, we have developed a simulation framework that maps the trajectories of relic neutrinos as they move through the local gravitational environment. The potentials are based on the dark matter halos found in state-of-the-art cosmological N-body simulations, resulting in a more nuanced and realistic input than the previously employed analytical models. We find that the complex dark matter distributions, along with their dynamic evolution, influence the abundance and anisotropies of the CNB in ways unaccounted for by earlier analytical methods. Importantly, these cosmological simulations contain multiple instances of Milky Way-like halos that we employ to model a variety of gravitational landscapes. Consequently, we notice a variation in the CNB number densities that can be primarily attributed to the differences in the masses of these individual halos. For neutrino masses between 0.01 and 0.3 eV, we note clustering factors within the range of 1 + 𝒪(10 -3 ) to 1 + 𝒪(1). Furthermore, the asymmetric nature of the underlying dark matter distributions within the halos results in not only overdense, but intriguingly, underdense regions within the full-sky anisotropy maps. Gravitational clustering appears to have a significant impact on the angular power spectra of these maps, leading to orders of magnitude more power on smaller scales beyond multipoles of ℓ = 3 when juxtaposed against predictions by primordial fluctuations. We discuss how our results reshape our understanding of relic neutrino clustering and how this might affect observability of future CNB observatories such as PTOLEMY. GitHub : our simulation code will be made visible here .

The nature of dark matter remains an open question and could be in the form of warm dark matter. Sterile neutrinos and axion-like particles are well motivated warm dark candidates, and can decay into photons, which are consequently detectable by X-ray telescopes with keV dark matter mass. Both particles could explain the observed unidentified 3.5 keV line and, interestingly, XENON1T observed an excess at a few keV that can originate from axion-like particles. We study the diffuse emission coming from the Galactic halo, and test the sensitivity of all-sky X-ray survey eROSITA to identify a sterile neutrino or axion-like particle. By Monte Carlo method, we set bounds on the mixing angle of the sterile neutrinos and coupling strength of the axion-like particles. With eROSITA, we will be able to set stringent constraints, and in particular, we will be able to firmly probe the best-fit of the unidentified 3.5 keV line, where we reach an order of magnitude better sensitivity. Moreover, eROSITA is able to confirm an axion-like particle origin of the XENON1T excess for an excess

Warm dark matter (WDM) can potentially explain small-scale observations that currently challenge the cold dark matter (CDM) model, as warm particles suppress structure formation due to free-streaming effects. Observing small-scale matter distribution provides a valuable way to distinguish between CDM and WDM. In this work, we use observations from the Dark Energy Survey and PanSTARRS1, which observe 270 Milky-Way satellites after completeness corrections. We test WDM models by comparing the number of satellites in the Milky Way with predictions derived from the Semi-Analytical SubHalo Inference ModelIng (SASHIMI) code, which we develop based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism and subhalos' tidal evolution prescription. We robustly rule out WDM with masses lighter than 4.4 keV at 95% confidence level for the Milky-Way halo mass of $10^{12} M_\odot$. The limits are a weak function of the (yet uncertain) Milky-Way halo mass, and vary as $m_{\rm WDM}>3.6$-$5.1$ keV for $(0.6$-$2.0) \times 10^{12} M_\odot$. For the sterile neutrinos that form a subclass of WDM, we obtain the constraints of $m_{\nu_s}>11.6$ keV for the Milky-Way halo mass of $10^{12} M_{\odot}$. These results based on SASHIMI do not rely on any assumptions of galaxy formation physics or are not limited by numerical resolution. The models, therefore, offer a robust and fast way to constrain the WDM models. By applying a satellite forming condition, however, we can rule out the WDM mass lighter than 9.0 keV for the Milky-Way halo mass of $10^{12} M_\odot$.