Light dark matter annihilating into electron-positron pairs emits a significant amount of internal bremsstrahlung that may contribute to the cosmic gamma-ray background. The amount of emitted gamma-rays depends on the dark matter clumping factor. Recent calculations indicate that this value should be of order $10^6-10^7$. That allows us to calculate the expected gamma-ray background contribution from dark matter annihilation. We find that the light dark matter model can be ruled out if a constant thermally-averaged cross section is assumed (s-wave annihilation). For more massive dark matter candidates like neutralinos, however, cosmic constraints are weaker.
We estimate the flux of cosmic-ray antiprotons expected from the annihilation of neutralinos in the galactic halo. The antiproton signal may offer an important alternative detection scheme in the case that neutralino annihilation proceeds mainly to the two-gluon final state.
The order of magnitude of energy emission from cusps to light bosons on ordinary cosmic strings is calculated perturbatively. The analysis is applicable to both closed string loops and long cosmic strings. The perturbative result obtained here is much less than what is found by non-perturbative approximations.
We carry out a detailed analysis of fluxes of cosmic ray antiprotons, positrons, electrons and photons to be expected from the annihilation of relic heavy neutrinos in the galactic halo. The spectra of particles are evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation. The results of calculations show that the investigation of cosmic ray positron spectra at high energies could provide a distinctive signal for annihilation of very heavy neutrinos in the Galaxy and give an important information on parameters of dark matter particles.
Dark matter (DM) annihilation could in principle contribute to the diffuse cosmic gamma-ray back- ground (CGB). While with standard assumptions for cosmological and particle physics parameters this contribution is expected to be rather small, a number of processes could boost it, including a larger-than-expected DM annihilation cross-section, or the occurance of DM substructures such as DM mini-spikes around intermediate-mass black holes. We show that angular correlations of the CGB provide a tool to disentangle the signal induced by DM annihilation in mini-spikes from a conventional astrophys…
Energy injected into the Cosmic Microwave Background at redshifts z<10^6 will distort its spectrum permanently. In this paper we discuss the distortion caused by annihilations of relic particles. We use the observational bounds on deviations from a Planck spectrum to constrain a combination of annihilation cross section, mass, and abundance. For particles with (s-wave) annihilation cross section, <σ|v|>=σ_0, the bound is f[(σ_0/6e-27cm^3/s)(Ω_{X\bar{X}}h^2)^2]/(m_X/MeV)<0.2, where m_X is the particle mass, Ω_{X\bar{X}} is the fraction of the critical density the particle and its antiparticle c…
We report the main results of a paper where recent data of low-energy cosmic-ray $\bar p$ spectrum have been analyzed in terms of newly calculated fluxes for secondary antiprotons and for a possible contribution of an exotic signal due to neutralino annihilation in the galactic halo. We also present the results of a paper in which we have proved that a sizeable fraction of the supersymmetric neutralino configurations, singled out by the DAMA/NaI data on a possible annual modulation effect in WIMP direct search, may provide detectable cosmic-ray antiproton signals.
Annihilation of high energy, $\sim 10^{21}$eV, neutrinos on big bang relic neutrinos of $\sim 1$eV mass, clustered in the Galactic halo or in a nearby galaxy cluster halo, has been suggested to generate, through hadronic Z decay, high energy nucleons and photons which may account for the detected flux of >10^{20}eV cosmic-rays. We show that the flux of high energy nucleons and photons produced by this process is dominated by annihilation on the uniform, non-clustered, neutrino background, and that the energy generation rate of 10^{21}eV neutrinos required to account for the detected flux of >1…
Positron and electron cosmic rays provide a complementary way to study the galactic environment. The actual cosmic rays experiments, for instance PAMELA and HEAT, have presented very exciting results in this field. The observed positron fraction appears larger than the actual theoretical predictions for energies larger than 10 GeV. The indirect evidences of Dark Matter in connection with Beyond the Standard Model theories would suggest the existence of an extra contribution present in the cosmic ray signal. We study and calculate the positron signal produced by the annihilation of a generic Da…
We analyze the data of low-energy cosmic-ray antiproton spectrum, recently published by the BESS Collaboration, in terms of newly calculated fluxes for secondary antiprotons and for a possible contribution of an exotic signal due to neutralino annihilation in the galactic halo. We single out the relevant supersymmetric configurations and discuss their explorability with experiments of direct search for particle dark matter and at accelerators. We discuss how future measurements with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the Shuttle flight may disentangle the possible neutralino-induced cont…
The origin of the cosmic gamma-ray background at 1-20 MeV remains a mystery. We show that gamma-ray emission accompanying annihilation of 20 MeV dark matter particles explains most of the observed signal. Our model satisfies all of the current observational constraints, and naturally provides the origin of "missing" gamma-ray background at 1-20 MeV and 511 keV line emission from the Galactic center. We conclude that gamma-ray observations support the existence of 20 MeV dark matter particles. Improved measurements of the gamma-ray background in this energy band undoubtedly test our proposal.
In this work we develop a new propagation model for the Galactic cosmic rays based on the GALPROP code, including contributions from dark matter annihilation. The model predicts compatible Galactic diffuse $γ$ ray spectra with EGRET data in all sky regions. It also gives consistent results of the diffuse $γ$ ray longitude and latitude distributions. Further the results for B/C, $^{10}$Be/$^9$Be, proton, electron and antiproton spectra are also consistent with cosmic ray measurements. In the model we have taken a universal proton spectrum throughout the Galaxy without introducing large fluctuat…
In light of the mounting evidence that the highest energy cosmic rays are dominated by protons and not gamma-rays, we discuss the prospect that these cosmic rays are generated in the decay or annihilation of superheavy relic particles. We calculate the high energy neutrino spectrum which results and normalize our results to the ultra-high energy cosmic ray spectrum. We show that most scenerios are already constrained by present limits placed by the AMANDA experiment.
The recombination history of the Universe provides a useful tool for constraining the annihilation of dark matter particles. Even a small fraction of dark matter particles annihilated during the cosmic dark age can provide sufficient energy to affect the ionization state of the baryonic gas. Although this effect is too small for neutralinos, lighter dark matter particle candidates, e.g. with mass of 1-100 MeV, which was proposed recently to explain the observed excess of positrons in the Galactic Center, may generate observable differences in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature a…
Dark Matter that is composed of WIMP remnants of incomplete particle-antiparticle annihilation in the early universe experiences ongoing annihilation in gravitationally bound large scale structure. This annihilation will have important consequences in the perhaps distant cosmic future, as the annihilation time-scale becomes comparable to the age of the universe. Much of large scale structure, from galaxy satellites to galaxy clusters will disappear.
The origin of the cosmic gamma-ray background (CGB) is a longstanding mystery in high-energy astrophysics. Possible candidates include ordinary astrophysical objects such as unresolved blazars, as well as more exotic processes such as dark matter annihilation. While it would be difficult to distinguish them from the mean intensity data alone, one can use anisotropy data instead. We investigate the CGB anisotropy both from unresolved blazars and dark matter annihilation (including contributions from dark matter substructures), and find that the angular power spectra from these sources are very …
Annihilation of clumped superheavy dark matter provides an interesting explanation for the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays. The predicted anisotropy signal provides a unique signature for this scenario.
We evaluate the antiproton--to--proton flux ratio which can be generated by neutralino--neutralino annihilation in the galactic halo, considering the most general compositions for the relic neutralinos and modelling the neutralino local density according to its relic abundance. We find that in the case of mixed neutralino compositions this $\bar p/p$ ratio is higher than for pure higgsinos or gauginos. It is shown how the expected improvements in sensitivity for the new measurements of the $\bar p/p$ may provide very useful information, complementary to the one obtainable with other experiment…
High-energy photons from dark matter annihilation contribute to the cosmic gamma-ray background (CGB). Since dark matter particles are weakly interacting, annihilation can happen only in high density regions such as dark matter halos. The precise shape of the energy spectrum of CGB depends on the nature of dark matter particles, as well as the cosmological evolution of dark matter halos. In order to discriminate between the signals from dark matter annihilation and other astrophysical sources, however, the information from the energy spectrum may not be sufficient. We show that dark matter ann…
We consider the possibility that ultra-high energy cosmic rays originate from the annihilation of relic superheavy dark-matter particles. We find that a cross section of <sigma_A v> ~ 10^{-26}cm^2 (M_X/10^{12}GeV)^{3/2} is required to account for the observed rate of super-GZK events if the superheavy dark matter follows a Navarro-Frenk-White density profile. This would require extremely large-l contributions to the annihilation cross section. We also calculate the possible signature from annihilation in sub-galactic clumps of dark matter and find that the signal from sub-clumps dominates and …
The majority of mass in the universe has not been observed optically and is termed dark matter. The supersymmetric neutralino provides an interesting dark matter candidate, which may self-annihilate in our galaxy, producing particles visible in the cosmic ray spectrum. During a ten day space shuttle flight, the AMS-01 detector recorded over 100 million cosmic ray events. This analysis searches for the products of neutralino annihilation in the AMS-01 Z=-1 spectrum, and uses the results to place limits on which supersymmetric and dark matter halo distribution models are compatible.
[Abridged]. We take advantage of the galaxy-like 3D dark matter map extracted from the HORIZON Project results to calculate the positron and antiproton fluxes from dark matter annihilation, in a model-independent approach as well as for dark matter particle benchmarks relevant at the LHC scale (from supersymmetric and extra-dimensional theories). Such a study is dedicated to a better estimate of the theoretical uncertainties affecting predictions, while the PAMELA and GLAST satellites are currently taking data which will soon provide better observational constraints. We discuss the predictions…
We consider electroweak singlet dark matter with a mass comparable to the Higgs mass. The singlet is assumed to couple to standard matter through a perturbative coupling to the Higgs particle. The annihilation of a singlet with a mass comparable to the Higgs mass is dominated by proximity to the W, Z and Higgs peaks in the annihilation cross section. We find that the continuous photon spectrum from annihilation of a perturbatively coupled singlet in the galactic halo can reach a level of several per mil of the EGRET diffuse gamma ray flux.
We re-examine collisional annihilation of superheavy dark matter particles in dark matter density spikes in the galactic halo as a possible source of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays. We estimate the possible flux in a way that does not depend on detailed assumptions about the density profiles of dark matter clumps. The result confirms that collisional annihilation is compatible with annihilation cross sections below the unitarity bounds for superheavy dark matter if the particles can form dense cores in dark matter substructure, and it provides estimates for core sizes and densities. The ensuing …
How large can the dark matter self-annihilation rate in the late universe be? This rate depends on (rho_DM/m_chi)^2 <sigma_A v>, where rho_DM/m_chi is the number density of dark matter, and the annihilation cross section is averaged over the velocity distribution. Since the clustering of dark matter is known, this amounts to asking how large the annihilation cross section can be. Kaplinghat, Knox, and Turner proposed that a very large annihilation cross section could turn a halo cusp into a core, improving agreement between simulations and observations; Hui showed that unitarity prohibits this…
We investigate the possibility that ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) originate from the annihilation of relic superheavy (SH) dark matter in the Galactic halo. In order to fit the data on UHECRs, a cross section of $<σ_Av>\sim 10^{-26}\textrm{cm}^2 (M_X/10^{12} \textrm{GeV})^{3/2}$ is required if the SH dark matter follows a Navarro--Frenk--White (NFW) density profile. This would require extremely large-$l$ contributions to the annihilation cross section. An interesting finding of our calculation is that the annihilation in sub-galactic clumps of dark matter dominates over the annihilati…
A sequence of two symmetry breaking transitions in the early universe may produce monopoles whose flux is confined into two strings each, which thus assemble into "necklaces" with monopoles as beads. Such "cosmic necklaces" have been proposed as a source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. We analyze the evolution of these systems and show that essentially all monopoles annihilate or leave the string at early times, after which cosmic necklaces evolve in a similar way to a network of ordinary cosmic strings. We investigate several modifications to the basic picture, but in nearly all cases we fi…
We investigate the possibility that the antiproton-to-proton flux ratio which is measured in cosmic rays may be generated by neutralino-neutralino annihilation in the galactic halo. We study the most general compositions for the relic neutralinos. We compare our results with the present experimental sensitivity and find that the theoretical predictions are at the level of the current experimental limits for some regions in the parameter space of the model.We expect that the future measurements of the pbar/p will provide very useful information, complementary to the ones obtainable with other e…
Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) are candidates to seed the Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs), and some could still wander in the Galaxy. In the context of annihilating dark matter (DM), they are expected to drive huge annihilation rates, and could therefore significantly enhance the primary cosmic rays (CRs) expected from annihilation of the DM of the Galactic halo. In this proceeding (the original paper is Brun et al. 2007), we briefly explain the method to derive estimates of such exotic contributions to the anti-proton and positron CR spectra, and the associated statistical uncertainti…
Cosmic rays with energies exceeding $10^{20}\eV$ have been detected. The origin of these highest energy cosmic rays remains unknown. Established astrophysical acceleration mechanisms encounter severe difficulties in accelerating particles to these energies. Alternative scenarios where these particles are created by the decay of cosmic topological defects have been suggested in literature. In this paper we study the possibility of producing the highest energy cosmic rays through a process that involves formation of metastable magnetic monopole-antimonopole bound states and their subsequent coll…
The excess of cosmic-ray electron and positron fluxes measured by the PAMELA satellite and ATIC balloon experiments may be interpreted as the signals of the dark matter annihilation or decay into leptons. In this letter we show that the dark matter annihilation/decay which reproduces the electron/positron excess may yield a significant amount of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic center. In the case, future kilometer-square size experiments may confirm such a scenario, or even the Super-Kamiokande results already put constraints on some dark matter models.
We calculate the flux of cosmic gamma rays expected {}from the annihilation of neutralinos in the Galactic halo. Our calculation of the annihilation cross section to two photons improves the existing calculations by inclusion of exact one-loop diagrams for the amplitudes involving Higgs boson and chargino states as well as those involving fermion and sfermion states. A survey of supersymmetric parameter space shows that numerous models would be observable at the $3σ$ level with an air Cerenkov telescope with an exposure of $10^4 \meter^2 \yr$.
If neutrinos are a significant contributor to the matter density of the universe, then they should have $\sim$ eV mass and cluster in galactic (super) cluster halos, and possibly in galactic halos as well. It was noted in the early 1980's that cosmic ray neutrinos with energy within $δE/E_R=Γ_Z/M_Z \sim 3%$ of the peak energy $E_R=4 (eV/m_ν)\times 10^{21}$ eV will annihilate on the nonrelativistic relic antineutrinos (and vice versa) to produce the Z-boson with an enhanced, resonant cross section of ${\cal O}(G_F)\sim 10^{-32}{cm}^2$. The result of the resonant neutrino annihilation is a hadro…
We calculate the antiproton flux due to relic neutralino annihilations, in a two-dimensional diffusion model compatible with stable and radioactive cosmic ray nuclei. We find that the uncertainty in the primary flux induced by the propagation parameters alone is about two orders of magnitude at low energies, and it is mainly determined by the lack of knowledge on the thickness of the diffusive halo. On the contrary, different dark matter density profiles do not significantly alter the flux: a NFW distribution produces fluxes which are at most 20% higher than an isothermal sphere. The most cons…
Decays of superheavy relic particles may produce extremely energetic neutrinos. Their annihilations on the relic neutrinos can be the origin of the cosmic rays with energies beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff. The red shift acts as a cosmological filter selecting the sources at some particular value z_e, for which the present neutrino energy is close to the Z pole of the annihilation cross section. We predict no directional correlation of the ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays with the galactic halo. At the same time, there can be some directional correlations in the data, reflecting the dist…
It has been proposed that the excess in cosmic ray positrons at approximately 8 GeV, observed on both flights of the HEAT balloon experiment, may be associated with the annihilation of dark matter within the Milky Way halo. In this paper we demonstrate how the self-annihilation of neutralino dark matter within local substructure can account for this excess, and estimate the annihilation cross-section for several benchmark minimal supersymmetric (MSSM) models. We also demonstrate the effect on the permitted parameter space as tidal stripping effects and destruction of substructure by mergers be…
The extragalactic cosmic gamma-ray background (CGB) is an interesting channel to look for signatures of dark matter annihilation. In particular, besides the imprint in the energy spectrum, peculiar anisotropy patterns are expected compared to the case of a pure astrophysical origin of the CGB. We take into account the uncertainties in the dark matter clustering properties on sub-galactic scales, deriving two possible anisotropy scenarios. A clear dark matter angular signature is achieved when the annihilation signal receives only a moderate contribution from sub-galactic clumps and/or cuspy ha…
In the indirect detection of dark matter through its annihilation products, the signals depend on the square of the dark matter density, making precise knowledge of the distribution of dark matter in the Universe critical for robust predictions. Many studies have focused on regions where the dark matter density is greatest, e.g., the Galactic Center, as well as on the cosmic signal arising from all halos in the Universe. We focus on the signal arising from the whole Milky Way halo; this is less sensitive to uncertainties in the dark matter distribution, and especially for flatter profiles, thi…
The positron excess observed by the PAMELA experiment may come from dark matter annihilation, if the annihilation cross section is large enough. We show that the dark matter annihilation scenarios to explain the positron excess may also be compatible with the discrepancy of the cosmic lithium abundances between theory and observations. The wino-like neutralino in the supersymmetric standard model is a good example for it. This scenario may be confirmed by Fermi satellite experiment.
Some part of the relic Dark Matter is distributed in small-scale clumps which survived structure formation in inflation cosmological scenario. The annihilation of DM inside these clumps is a strong source of stable charged particles which can have a substantial density near the clump core. The streaming of the annihilation products from the clump can enhance irregularities in the galactic magnetic field. This can produce small scale variations in diffusion coefficient affecting propagation of Cosmic Rays.
Motivated by the anomalous positron flux recently reported by the PAMELA collaboration, we study the cosmic-ray positron produced by the pair annihilation and the decay of superparticle dark matter. We calculate the cosmic-ray positron flux and discuss implications of the PAMELA data. We show that the positron excess observed by the PAMELA can be explained with some of the superparticle dark matter.
The TGRS experiment on board the Wind spacecraft has many advantages as a sky monitor --- broad field of view (~2 pi) centered on the south ecliptic pole), long life (1994-present), and stable low background and continuous coverage due to Wind's high altitude high eccentricity orbit. The Ge detector has sufficient energy resolution (3-4 keV at 511 keV) to resolve a cosmic positron annihilation line from the strong background annihilation line from beta-decays induced by cosmic ray impacts on the instrument, if the cosmic line is Doppler-shifted by this amount. Such lines (blueshifted) are pred…
We consider dark matter annihilation into Standard Model particles and show that the least detectable final states, namely neutrinos, define an upper bound on the total cross section. Calculating the cosmic diffuse neutrino signal, and comparing it to the measured terrestrial atmospheric neutrino background, we derive a strong and general bound. This can be evaded if the annihilation products are dominantly new and truly invisible particles. Our bound is much stronger than the unitarity bound at the most interesting masses, shows that dark matter halos cannot be significantly modified by annih…
We have made a calculation of the propagation of positrons from dark-matter particle annihilation in the Galactic halo for different models of the dark matter halo distribution using our 3D code. We show that the Green's functions are not very sensitive to the dark matter distribution for the same local dark matter energy density. We compare our predictions with computed cosmic ray positron spectra ("background") for the "conventional" cosmic-ray nucleon spectrum which matches the local measurements, and a modified spectrum which respects the limits imposed by measurements of diffuse Galactic …
We re-investigate the evolution of the strongly degenerate neutrinos in the early universe. With the larger degeneracy, the neutrino number freezes at higher temperatures because the neutrino annihilation rate decreases. We consider very large degeneracy so large that the neutrino number freezes before events in which the particle degrees of freedom in the universe decrease (e.g. the muon annihilation and the quark-hadron phase transition). In such a case, the degeneracy by the time of nucleosynthesis becomes smaller than the initial degeneracy. We calculate how much it decreases from the init…
