We consider a new scenario for supersymmetric decaying dark matter without R-parity violation in theories with goldstini, which arise if supersymmetry is broken independently by multiple sequestered sectors. The uneaten goldstino naturally has a long lifetime and decays into three-body final states including the gravitino, which escapes detection, and two visible particles. The goldstini low-energy effective interactions are derived, which can be non-universal and allow the dark matter to be leptophilic, in contrast to the case of a single sector supersymmetry breaking. In addition, the three-body decay with a missing particle gives a softer spectrum. Consequently, it is possible to fit both the positron excess observed by the PAMELA and the total e+ + e- measurements by the Fermi-LAT using universal couplings to all three lepton flavors or 100% branching fraction into electrons/positrons, both of which are disfavored in the conventional scenario of dark matter decays into two or four visible particles without missing energy.
In the scenario with a multiplicity of sectors which independently break supersymmetry, multiplicity of goldstini are predicted. We propose a new interpretation of the electron recoil excess at 2-7 keV observed in the XENON1T experiment with very long-lived goldstini DM elastically scattering off the electrons. The goldstini DM can be boosted by the late-decay of the other nearly degenerate (long-lived) goldstini DM, with their tiny mass difference being converted into kinetic energy of the lighter goldstini DM and neutrinos. We show that viable parameter space can be found which can explain t…
Supersymmetric phenomenology has been largely bound to the hypothesis that supersymmetry breaking originates from a single source. In this paper, we relax this underlying assumption and consider a multiplicity of sectors which independently break supersymmetry, thus yielding a corresponding multiplicity of goldstini. While one linear combination of goldstini is eaten via the super-Higgs mechanism, the orthogonal combinations remain in the spectrum as physical degrees of freedom. Interestingly, supergravity effects induce a universal tree-level mass for the goldstini which is exactly twice the …
In the presence of approximate global symmetries that forbid relevant interactions, strongly coupled light Dark Matter (DM) can appear weakly coupled at small energy and generate a sizable relic abundance. Fundamental principles like unitarity restrict these symmetries to a small class, where the leading interactions are captured by effective operators up to dimension-8. Chiral symmetry, spontaneously broken global symmetries and non-linearly realized supersymmetry are examples of this. Their DM candidates (composite fermions, pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Bosons and Goldstini) are interesting target…
While the excess in cosmic-ray electrons and positrons reported by PAMELA and Fermi may be explained by dark matter decaying primarily into charged leptons, this does not necessarily mean that dark matter should not have any hadronic decay modes. In order to quantify the allowed hadronic activities, we derive constraints on the decay rates of dark matter into WW, ZZ, hh, qqbar and gg using the Fermi and HESS gamma-ray data. We also derive gamma-ray constraints on the leptonic e+e-, mu+mu- and tau+tau- final states. We find that dark matter must decay primarily into mu+mu- or tau+tau- in order …
We show that, if decaying gravitino dark matter is responsible for the PAMELA and ATIC/PPB-BETS anomalies in the cosmic-ray electron and positron fluxes, both a reheating temperature and a gluino mass are constrained from above. In particular, the gluino mass is likely within the reach of LHC, if the observed baryon asymmetry is explained by thermal leptogenesis scenario.
The recent PAMELA and ATIC/Fermi/HESS experiments have observed an excess of electrons and positrons, but not anti-protons, in the high energy cosmic rays. To explain this result, we construct a decaying hidden dark matter model in string theory compactification that incorporates the following two ingredients, the hidden dark matter scenario in warped compactification and the phenomenological proposal of hidden light particles that decay to the Standard Model. In this model, on higher dimensional warped branes, various warped Kaluza-Klein particles and the zero-mode of gauge field play roles o…
We consider dark matter consisting of long--living particles with masses $10^{7}~\lesssim~M~\lesssim~10^{16}$ GeV decaying through hadronic channel as a source of high energy neutrino. Using recent data on high energy neutrino from IceCube and Pierre Auger experiments we derive the upper-limits on neutrino flux from dark matter decay and constraints on dark matter parameter space. For the dark matter masses of order $10^8$ GeV the constraints derived are slightly stronger than those obtained for the same dark matter model using the high energy gamma-ray limits.
We propose a new flavor model that can simlutaneously well-describe the indirect detection experiment of (decaying) dark matter in the cosmic-ray, with the binary icosahedral group A'_5. We show not only that the A'_{5} symmetry can derive quark and lepton masses and mixings consistently, but also that are expected some predictions for the lepton sector. And if we assume a gauge-singlet fermionic decaying dark matter, its decay operators are also constrained by this symmetry so that only dimension six operators of leptonic decay are allowed up to six dimensional Lagrangians. We find that the c…
We consider decaying dark matter with masses $10^{7} \lesssim M \lesssim 10^{16}$ GeV, as a source of ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma rays. Using recent limits on UHE gamma-ray flux for energies $E_γ> 2 \cdot 10^{14}$ eV, provided by extensive air shower observatories, we put limits on masses and lifetimes of the dark matter. We also discuss possible dark matter decay origin of tentative 100 PeV photon flux detected with EAS-MSU experiment.
Recently, the Fermi-LAT collaboration reported upper limits on the GeV gamma-ray flux from nearby clusters of galaxies. Motivated by these limits, we study corresponding constraints on gamma-ray emissions from two specific decaying dark matter models, one via grand unification scale suppressed operators and the other via R-parity violating operators. Both can account for the PAMELA and Fermi-LAT excesses of e^\pm. For GUT decaying dark matter, the gamma-rays from the M49 and Fornax clusters, with energy in the range of 1 to 10 GeV, lead to the most stringent constraints to date. As a result, t…
We revisited the decaying dark matter (DDM) model, in which one collisionless particle decays early into two collisionless particles, that are potentially dark matter particles today. The effect of DDM will be manifested in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and structure formation. With a systematic modification of CMB calculation tool \texttt{camb}, we can numerically calculated this effect, and compare it to observations. Further Markov Chain Monte Carlo \texttt{cosmomc} runnings update the constraints in that model: the free streaming length $λ_{FS}\lesssim0.5$Mpc for nonrelativistic de…
We study a new flavor symmetric model with non-Abelian discrete symmetry T_{13}. The T_{13} group is isomorphic to Z_{13} \rtimes Z_3, and it is the minimal group having two complex triplets as the irreducible representations. We show that the T_{13} symmetry can derive lepton masses and mixings consistently. Moreover, if we assume a gauge-singlet fermionic decaying dark matter, its decay operators are also constrained by the T_{13} symmetry so that only dimension six operators of leptonic decay are allowed. We find that the cosmic-ray anomalies reported by PAMELA and Fermi-LAT are explained b…
A TeV scale decaying dark matter chiral multiplet N is introduced in addition to the minimal supersymmetric standard model(MSSM). For a calculable abundance of N, we introduce heavy axino decaying to N and MSSM particles including the lightest supersymmetric particle(LSP). In the scenario that heavy axino, once dominating the energy density of the universe, decays after the LSP decouples, it is possible to estimate the relative cosmic abundances of N and the LSP. Dimension 6 interactions allow the lifetime of the fermionic or the bosonic superpartner of N in the 10^{27} s range to be compatibl…
Recently reported tentative evidence for a gamma-ray line in the Fermi-LAT data is of great potential interest for identifying the nature of dark matter. We compare the implications for decaying and annihilating dark matter taking the constraints from continuum gamma-rays, antiproton flux and morphology of the excess into account. We find that higgsino and wino dark matter are excluded, also for nonthermal production. Generically, the continuum gamma-ray flux severely constrains annihilating dark matter. Consistency of decaying dark matter with the spatial distribution of the Fermi-LAT excess …
We consider axino warm dark matter in a supersymmetric axion model with R-parity violation. In this scenario, axino with the mass $m_\axino\simeq 7$ keV can decay into photon and neutrino resulting in the X-ray line signal at $3.5$ keV, which might be the origin of unidentified X-ray emissions from galaxy clusters and Andromeda galaxy detected by the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory.
Clear methods to differentiate between decaying and annihilating dark matter (DM) scenarios are still by and large unavailable. In this note, we study the potential astrophysical signatures of a new class of hidden sector decaying DM models, which can address the recent cosmic ray measurements. Such models may produce primary photons and/or neutrinos at large rates, correlated with the leptonic production. The photon and neutrino spectra will then contain sharp features at the TeV scale. We demonstrate the discovery potential for upcoming and future measurements by FERMI, HESS, AGIS and IceCub…
The consideration of dark energy's quanta, required also by thermodynamics, introduces its chemical potential into the cosmological equations. Isolating its main contribution, we obtain solutions with dark energy decaying to matter or radiation. When dominant, their energy densities tend asymptotically to a constant ratio, explaining today's dark energy-dark matter coincidence, and in agreement with supernova redshift data, and a universe-age constraint. This also connects the Planck's and today's scales through time. This decay may be manifested in the highest-energy cosmic rays, recently det…
We present general constraints on dark matter stability in hadronic decay channels derived from measurements of cosmic-ray antiprotons.We analyze various hadronic decay modes in a model-independent manner by examining the lowest-order decays allowed by gauge and Lorentz invariance for scalar and fermionic dark matter particles and present the corresponding lower bounds on the partial decay lifetimes in those channels. We also investigate the complementarity between hadronic and gamma-ray constraints derived from searches for monochromatic lines in the sky, which can be produced at the quantum …
Superheavy dark matter may show its presence in high energy neutrino signals detected on earth. From the latest results of IceCube, we could set the strongest lower bound on the lifetime of dark matter beyond 100 TeV around $10^{28} {\rm sec}$. The excess around a PeV is noticed and may be interpreted as the first signal of DM even though further confirmation and dedicated searches are invited.
Fermi-LAT has confirmed the excess in cosmic positron fraction observed by PAMELA, which could be explained by dark matter annihilating or decaying in the center of the galaxy. Most existing models postulate that the dark matter annihilates or decays into final states with two or four leptons, which would produce diffuse gamma ray emissions that are in tension with data measured by Fermi-LAT. We point out that the tension could be alleviated if the dark matter decays into three-body final states with a pair of leptons and a missing particle. Using the goldstino decay in a certain class of supe…
We study the possibility of improving the constraints on the lifetime of gravitino dark matter in scenarios with bilinear R-parity violation by estimating the amount of cosmic-ray antideuterons that can be produced in gravitino decays. Taking into account all different sources of theoretical uncertainties, we find that the margin of improvement beyond the limits already set by cosmic-ray antiproton data are quite narrow and unachievable for the next generation of experiments. However, we also identify more promising energy ranges for future experiments.
We show that a stacking approach to galaxy clusters can improve current limits on decaying dark matter by a factor $\gtrsim 5-100$, with respect to a single source analysis, for all-sky instruments such as Fermi-LAT. Based on the largest sample of X-ray-selected galaxy clusters available to date (the MCXC meta-catalogue), we provide all the astrophysical information, in particular the astrophysical term for decaying dark matter, required to perform an analysis with current instruments.
We propose a new class of R-parity violating extension of MSSM with type II seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses where an unstable gravitino is the dark matter of the Universe. It decays predominantly into three leptons final states, thereby providing a natural explanation of the positron excess but no antiproton excess in the PAMELA experiment. The model can explain neutrino masses without invoking any high scale physics while keeping the pre-existing baryon asymmetry of the universe in tact.
We study the cosmological consequences of co-decaying dark matter - a recently proposed mechanism for depleting the density of dark matter through the decay of nearly degenerate particles. A generic prediction of this framework is an early dark matter dominated phase in the history of the universe, that results in the enhanced growth of dark matter perturbations on small scales. We compute the duration of the early matter dominated phase and show that the perturbations are robust against washout from free-streaming. The enhanced small scale structure is expected to survive today in the form of…
The latest Lyman-$α$ forest data severely constrain the conventional warm dark matter solution to small-scale issues in the cold dark matter paradigm. It has been also reported that unconstrained astrophysical processes may address the issues. In response to this situation, we revisit the decaying dark matter solution to the issues, discussing possible signatures to discriminate decaying dark matter from astrophysical processes as a solution to small-scale issues. We consider an axinolike particle (ALPino) decaying into an axionlike particle (ALP) and gravitino with the lifetime around the age…
In light of the recent observation of the Fermi-LAT 130 GeV gamma-ray line, we suggest a model of scalar dark matter in hidden sector, which can decay into two (hidden) photons. The process is radiatively induced by a GUT scale fermion in the loop, which is charged under a hidden sector U(1), and the kinetic mixing ($\sim εF^{μν}F'_{μν}$) enables us to fit the required decay width for the Fermi-LAT peak. The model does not allow any dangerous decay channels into light standard model particles.
The assumption of a single astrophysical power-law flux to explain the IceCube 6-year HESE extraterrestrial events yields a large spectral index that is in tension with gamma-ray observations and the 6-year up-going muon neutrinos data. Adopting a spectral index belonging to the range $\left[2.0,2.2\right]$, which is compatible with the one deduced by the analysis performed on the 6-year up-going muon neutrinos data and with $p$-$p$ astrophysical sources, the latest IceCube data show an up to $2.6\,σ$ excess in the number of events in the energy range 40--200 TeV. We interpret such an excess a…
Gravitino dark matter, together with thermal leptogenesis, implies an upper bound on the masses of superparticles. In the case of broken R-parity the constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis are naturally satisfied and decaying gravitinos lead to characteristic signatures in high energy cosmic rays. We analyse the implications for supergravity models with universal boundary conditions at the grand unification scale. Together with low-energy observables one obtains a window of superparticle masses, which will soon be probed at the LHC, and a range of allowed reheating temperatures.
We analyze the impact of Fermi gamma-ray observations (primarily non-detections) of selected nearby galaxies, including dwarf spheroidals, and of clusters of galaxies on decaying dark matter models. We show that the fact that galaxy clusters do not shine in gamma rays puts the most stringent limits available to-date on the lifetime of dark matter particles for a wide range of particle masses and decay final states. In particular, our results put strong constraints on the possibility of ascribing to decaying dark matter both the increasing positron fraction reported by PAMELA and the high-energ…
New bounds on decaying Dark Matter are derived from the gamma-ray measurements of (i) the isotropic residual (extragalactic) background by Fermi and (ii) the Fornax galaxy cluster by H.E.S.S. We find that those from (i) are among the most stringent constraints currently available, for a large range of dark matter masses and a variety of decay modes, excluding half-lives up to about 10^26 to few 10^27 seconds. In particular, they rule out the interpretation in terms of decaying dark matter of the e+/- spectral features in PAMELA, Fermi and H.E.S.S., unless very conservative choices are adopted.…
Radiatively decaying dark matter may be searched through investigating the photon spectrum of galaxies and galaxy clusters. We explore whether the properties of dark matter can be constrained through the study of a polarization state of emitted photons. Starting from the basic principles of quantum mechanics we show that the models of symmetric dark matter are indiscernible by the photon polarization. However, we find that the asymmetric dark matter consisted of Dirac fermions is a source of circularly polarized photons, calling for the experimental determination of the photon state.
We construct an explicit, TeV-scale model of decaying dark matter in which the approximate stability of the dark matter candidate is a consequence of a global symmetry that is broken only by instanton-induced operators generated by a non-Abelian dark gauge group. The dominant dark matter decay channels are to standard model leptons. Annihilation of the dark matter to standard model states occurs primarily through the Higgs portal. We show that the mass and lifetime of the dark matter candidate in this model can be chosen to be consistent with the values favored by fits to data from the PAMELA …
Models of Co-Decaying dark matter lead to an early matter dominated epoch -- prior to BBN -- which results in an enhancement of the growth of dark matter substructure. If these primordial structures collapse further they can form primordial black holes providing an additional dark matter candidate. We derive the mass fraction in these black holes (which is not monochromatic) and consider observational constraints on how much of the dark matter could be comprised in these relics. We find that in many cases they can be a significant fraction of the dark matter. Interestingly, the masses of these…
Recent works of [1402.2301,1402.4119], claiming the detection of extra emission line with energy ~3.5 keV in X-ray spectra of certain clusters of galaxies and nearby Andromeda galaxy, have raised considerable interest in astrophysics and particle physics communities. A number of new observational studies claim detection or non-detection of the extra line in X-ray spectra of various cosmic objects. In this review I summarize existing results of these studies, overview possible interpretations of the extra line, including intriguing connection with radiatively decaying dark matter, and show futu…
The origin of neutrino flux observed in IceCube is still mainly unknown. Typically two flux components are assumed, namely: atmospheric neutrinos and an unknown astrophysical term. In principle the latter could also contain a top-down contribution coming for example from decaying dark matter. In this case one should also expect prompt and secondary gammas as well. This leads to the possibility of a multimessenger analysis based on the simultaneous comparison of the Dark Matter hypothesis both with neutrino and high energy gamma rays data. In this paper, we analyze, for different decaying Dark …
We examine non-thermal dark matter production from a late-decaying scalar field, with a particular attention on non-renormalizable operators of D=5 through which the scalar field decays into the standard model particles and their superpartners. We show that almost the same number of superparticles as that of particles are generally produced from the decay. To avoid the gravitino overproduction problem, the decay is favored to proceed via interactions with an intermediate cut-off scale M << M_P. This should be contrasted to the conventional scenario using the modulus decay. The bosonic supersym…
Recently the PAMELA experiment has released its updated anti-proton flux and anti-proton to proton flux ratio data up to energies of ~200GeV. With no clear excess of cosmic ray anti-protons at high energies, one can extend constraints on the production of anti-protons from dark matter. In this letter, we consider both the cases of dark matter annihilating and decaying into standard model particles that produce significant numbers of anti-protons. We provide two sets of constraints on the annihilation cross-sections/decay lifetimes. In the one set of constraints we ignore any source of anti-pro…
The quantum chromodynamics axion with a decay constant near the Grand Unification (GUT) scale has an ultralight mass near a neV. We show, however, that axion-like particles with masses near the keV - PeV range with GUT-scale decay constants are also well motivated in that they naturally arise from axiverse theories with dark non-abelian gauge groups. We demonstrate that the correct dark matter abundance may be achieved by the heavy axions in these models through the misalignment mechanism in combination with a period of early matter domination from the long-lived dark glueballs of the same gau…
High energy electrons and positrons from decaying dark matter can produce a significant flux of gamma rays by inverse Compton off low energy photons in the interstellar radiation field. This possibility is inevitably related with the dark matter interpretation of the observed PAMELA and FERMI excesses. The aim of this paper is providing a simple and universal method to constraint dark matter models which produce electrons and positrons in their decay by using the Fermi LAT gamma-ray observations in the energy range between 0.5 GeV and 300 GeV. We provide a set of universal response functions t…
If dark matter decays into electrons and positrons, it can affect Galactic radio emissions and the local cosmic ray fluxes. We propose a new, more general analysis of constraints on dark matter. The constraints can be obtained for any decaying dark matter model by convolving the specific dark matter decay spectrum with a response function. We derive this response function from full-sky radio surveys at 408 MHz, 1.42 GHz and 23 GHz, as well as from the positron flux recently reported by PAMELA. We discuss the influence of astrophysical uncertainties on the response function, such as from propag…
Constraints on light decaying dark matter candidates from 16 years of INTEGRAL/SPI observations
LAPTh, CNRS, USMB（LAPTh, 法国国家科学研究中心, 萨瓦大学）；GRAPPA Institute, University of Amsterdam（GRAPPA研究所, 阿姆斯特丹大学）；Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg（维尔茨堡大学理论物理与天体物理研究所）
Recently the AMS-02 experiment reported an excess of cosmic ray antiprotons over the expected astrophysical background. We interpret the excess as a signal from annihilating or decaying dark matter and find that the observed spectrum is well fitted by adding contributions from the annihilation or decay of dark matter with mass of O(TeV) or larger. Interestingly, Wino dark matter with mass of around 3 TeV, whose thermal relic abundance is consistent with present dark matter abundance, can explain the antiproton excess. We also discuss the implications for the decaying gravitino dark matter with…
Positron excess observed by PAMELA, Fermi and AMS02 may be due to dark matter (DM) pair annihilation or decay dominantly into muons. In this paper, we consider a scenario with thermal fermionic DM ($χ$) with mass $\sim O(1-2)$ TeV decaying into a dark Higgs ($ϕ$) and an active neutrino ($ν_a$) instead of the SM Higgs boson and $ν_a$. We first present a renormalizable model for this scenario with local dark $U(1)_X$ gauge symmetry, in which the DM $χ$ can be thermalized by Higgs portal and the gauge kinetic mixing. Assuming the dark Higgs ($ϕ$) mass is in the range $2 m_μ< m_ϕ< 2 m_{π^0}$, the …
We investigate the possibility of reproducing the recently reported $3.55\,\mbox{keV}$ line in some simple decaying dark matter scenarios. In all cases a keV scale decaying DM is coupled with a scalar field charged under SM gauge interactions and thus capable of pair production at the LHC. We will investigate how the demand of a DM lifetime compatible with the observed signal, combined with the requirement of the correct DM relic density through the freeze-in mechanism, impacts the prospects of observation at the LHC of the decays of the scalar field.
We derive 95% CL lower limits on the lifetime of decaying dark matter in the channels $Zν$, $W\ell$ and $hν$ using measurements of the cosmic-ray antiproton flux by the PAMELA experiment. Performing a scan over the allowed range of cosmic-ray propagation parameters we find lifetime limits in the range of $8 \times 10^{28}$s to $5 \times 10^{25}$s for dark matter masses from roughly 100 GeV to 10 TeV. We apply these limits to the well-motivated case of gravitino dark matter in scenarios with bilinear violation of R-parity and find a similar range of lifetime limits for the same range of graviti…
We derive new bounds on decaying Dark Matter from the gamma ray measurements of (i) the isotropic residual (extragalactic) background by Fermi and (ii) the Fornax galaxy cluster by HESS. We find that those from (i) are among the most stringent constraints currently available, for a large range of DM masses and a variety of decay modes, excluding half-lives up to ~10^26 to few 10^27 seconds. In particular, they rule out the interpretation in terms of decaying DM of the e^\pm spectral features in Pamela, Fermi and HESS, unless very conservative choices are adopted. We also discuss future prospec…
We propose a new mechanism for thermal dark matter freezeout, termed Co-Decaying Dark Matter. Multi-component dark sectors with degenerate particles and out-of-equilibrium decays can co-decay to obtain the observed relic density. The dark matter density is exponentially depleted through the decay of nearly degenerate particles, rather than from Boltzmann suppression. The relic abundance is set by the dark matter annihilation cross-section, which is predicted to be boosted, and the decay rate of the dark sector particles. The mechanism is viable in a broad range of dark matter parameter space, …
Current constraints on energy injection in the form of energetic particles before the epoch of recombination using CMB spectral distortions assume that all energy goes into $y$ and $μ$-type distortions. We revisit these constraints with exact calculations of the spectral distortions by evolving the electromagnetic cascades. The actual spectral distortion differs in shape and amplitude from the $y$-type distortion and depends on the energy and nature of injected particles. The constraints on the energy injection processes such as dark matter decay can be relaxed by as much as a factor of 5.
Decaying dark matter cosmological models have been proposed to remedy the overproduction problem at small scales in the standard cold dark matter paradigm. We consider a decaying dark matter model in which one CDM mother particle decays into two daughter particles, with arbitrary masses. A complete set of Boltzmann equations of dark matter particles is derived which is necessary to calculate the evolutions of their energy densities and their density perturbations. By comparing the expansion history of the universe in this model and the free-streaming scale of daughter particles with astronomic…
A baryonic bound state with a mass of O(100) TeV, which is composed of strongly interacting messenger quarks in the low scale gauge mediation, can naturally be the cold dark matter. Interestingly, we find that such a baryonic dark matter is generically metastable, and the decay of this dark matter can naturally explain the anomalous positron flux recently observed by the PAMELA collaboration.
Considering that the ultrahigh energy (UHE) upgoing muon neutrino events around the PeV energy region observed by the IceCube are due to the decay of super heavy dark matter to neutrinos, we constrain the mass of the decaying dark matter and its decay lifetime using the IceCube analysis of these neutrinos in the PeV region. The theoretical fluxes are computed by adpoting the procedure given in the reference [1,2], where the DGLAP numerical evolutions of QCD cascades as well as electroweak corrections are included for evolving the decay process of the super heavy dark matter. Our results indica…
After the first four years of data taking, the IceCube neutrino telescope has observed 54 high-energy starting events (HESE) with deposited energies between 20 TeV and 2 PeV. The background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos is expected to be of about 20 events, all below 100 TeV, thus pointing towards the astrophysical origin of about 8 events per year in that data set. However, their precise origin remains unknown. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of this event sample (considering simultaneously the energy, hemisphere and topology of the events) by assuming two contributions for the si…
In this work we consider a simple model for dark matter and identify regions of parameter space where the relic abundance is set via kinematic thresholds, which open and close due to thermal effects. We discuss instantaneous freeze-out, where dark matter suddenly freezes-out when the channel connecting dark matter to the thermal bath closes, and decaying dark matter, where dark matter freezes-out while relativistic and later decays when a kinematic threshold temporarily opens. These mechanisms can occur in the vicinity of a one-step or a two-step phase transition. In all cases thermal effects …
If the dark matter is unstable, the decay of these particles throughout the universe and in the halo of the Milky Way could contribute significantly to the isotropic gamma-ray background (IGRB) as measured by Fermi. In this article, we calculate the high-latitude gamma-ray flux resulting from dark matter decay for a wide range of channels and masses, including all contributions from inverse Compton scattering and accounting for the production and full evolution of cosmological electromagnetic cascades. We also make use of recent multi-wavelength analyses that constrain the astrophysical contri…
We demonstrate that an economical two Higgs doublet model can explain the electron and positron excesses in the recent ATIC and PAMELA experiments by the three body decays of the dark matter (DM) fermions without requiring the fine turning of the couplings and degeneracy of masses. We also show that the mass and lifetime of the decaying DM particle may not be fixed to be around 1 TeV and 10^{26} sec, respectively. Moreover, we note that this model includes a stable dark matter candidate as well.
We consider the diffuse gamma ray data from FERMI first year observations and compare them to the gamma ray fluxes predicted by Dark Matter annihilation or decay (both from prompt emission and from Inverse Compton Scattering), for different observation regions of the sky and a range of Dark Matter masses, annihilation/decay channels and Dark Matter galactic profiles. We find that the data exclude large regions of the Dark Matter parameter space not constrained otherwise and discuss possible directions for future improvements. Also, we further constrain Dark Matter interpretations of the e+e- P…
A $Λ$CDM model with dark matter that decays into inert relativistic energy on a timescale longer than the Hubble time will produce an expansion history that can be misinterpreted as stable dark matter with time-varying dark energy. We calculate the corresponding spurious equation of state parameter, $\widetilde w_ϕ$, as a function of redshift, and show that the evolution of $\widetilde w_ϕ$ depends strongly on the assumed value of the dark matter density, erroneously taken to scale as $a^{-3}$. Depending on the latter, one can obtain models that mimic quintessence ($\widetilde w_ϕ> -1$), phant…
We re-formulate cosmological perturbations in the decaying cold dark matter model, and calculate cosmological microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. By comparing our theoretical predictions with recent observational data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe(WMAP), we derive a new bound on the abundance and lifetime of decaying dark matter particles. We show that the data of WMAP alone do not prefer the decaying cold dark matter model: the lifetime is constrained to Γ^{-1}> 123 Gyr at 68% C.L. (52 Gyr at 95.4% C.L.) when cold dark matter consists only of such decaying particles. We a…
