Observational constraints on dark matter scattering with electrons

Understand

We present new observational constraints on the elastic scattering of dark matter with electrons for dark matter masses between 10 keV and 1 TeV.

• We consider scenarios in which the momentum-transfer cross section has a power-law dependence on the relative particle velocity, with a power-law index $n \in \{-4,-2,0,2,4,6\}$.
• We search for evidence of dark matter scattering through its suppression of structure formation.
• Measurements of the cosmic microwave background temperature, polarization, and lensing anisotropy from \textit{Planck} 2018 data and of the Milky Way satellite abundance measurements from the Dark Energy Survey and Pan-STARRS1 show no evidence of interactions.