Did these scientists actually detect dark matter? I came across an article in The Guardian (definitely not the best source for science, but that's why I'm asking this question) that said that a team of scientists may have detected dark matter particles (characterized as axions) coming from the Sun. This seemed a little questionable, given how hard dark matter is to detect (and given how long scientists have searched for it). I have a multiple-part question:


*

*Have there been any independent peer-reviewed evaluations of the study? What were the conclusions regarding the accuracy of the results?

*How does the team know the supposed particles are axions, and not, say WIMPs?


The paper, by the way, can be found here.
 A: The paper has been severely criticised by Roncadelli & Tavecchio (2015). They note several important problems with Fraser et al.'s paper that they say make the conclusion that a signature of axions has been seen very unlikely.
Firstly, they do not dispute that Fraser et al. have seen an annually modulated X-ray background signal. The problem seems to be that these X-rays could be produced by axions in the geomagnetic field. Because XMM-Newton (the satellite in question) does not point at the Sun, then the X-ray photons need to have been scattered into the solid angle subtended by the XMM-Newton detectors that are pointing away from the Sun. It seems that the calculations of Fraser et al did not take into account the very large reduction in detected X-ray photons that results.
More minor(?) problems are that the axion-electron coupling constant estimated by Fraser et al. lies an order of magnitude higher than an upper limit found by new laboratory work and that this high coupling constant is inconsistent with a low-mass axion that is capable of being treated as cold dark matter. 
