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The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5-keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations

Safdi, Benjamin R.; Dessert, Christopher; Rodd, Nicholas L.

Observations of nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters have reported an unexpected x-ray emission line around 3.5 kilo-electron volts (keV). Proposals to explain this line include decaying dark matter—in particular, that the decay of sterile neutrinos with a mass around 7 keV could match the available data. If this interpretation is correct, the 3.5-…