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Abstract
Dark matter particles with a mass around 1 eV can decay into near-infrared photons. Utilizing available public blank sky observations from the NIRSpec IFU on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we search for a narrow emission line due to decaying dark matter and derive leading constraints in the mass range 0.8β3 eV on the decay rate to photons, and more specifically, on the axion-photon coupling for the case of axionlike particles. We exclude $π <3.5 Γ10^{26}ββs$ at $π_{DM}β0.8ββeV$ and, in the case of axions, $π_{πβ’πΎβ’πΎ}>1.3Γ10^{β11}ββGeV^{β1}$ for $π_πβ2.2ββeV$. Our results do not rely on dedicated observations, rather we use blank sky observations intended for sky subtraction, and thus our reach may be automatically strengthened as JWST continues to observe.