The AMS experiment onboard the International Space Station has recently provided cosmic ray electron and positron data with unprecedented precision in the range from 0.5 to 350 GeV. The observed rise in the positron fraction at energies above 10 GeV remains unexplained, with proposed solutions ranging from local pulsars to TeV-scale dark matter. Here, we make use of this high quality data to place stringent limits on dark matter with masses below ~300 GeV, annihilating or decaying to leptonic final states, essentially independent of the origin of this rise. We significantly improve on existing constraints, in some cases by up to two orders of magnitude.
We perform a combined analysis of the recent AMS-02 data on electrons, positrons, electrons plus positrons and positron fraction, in a self-consistent framework where we realize a theoretical modeling of all the astrophysical components that can contribute to the observed fluxes in the whole energy range. The primary electron contribution is modeled through the sum of an average flux from distant sources and the fluxes from the local supernova remnants in the Green catalog. The secondary electron and positron fluxes originate from interactions on the interstellar medium of primary cosmic rays,…
The rise of the cosmic ray positron fraction with energy, as first observed with high confidence by PAMELA, implies that a large flux of high energy positrons has been recently (or is being currently) injected into the local volume of the Milky Way. With the new and much more precise measurement of the positron fraction recently provided by AMS, we revisit the question of the origin of these high energy positrons. We find that while some dark matter models (annihilating directly to electrons or muons) no longer appear to be capable of accommodating these data, other models in which ~1-3 TeV da…
We show that the recent AMS02 positron fraction measurement is consistent with a secondary origin for positrons, and does not require additional primary sources such as pulsars or dark matter. The measured positron fraction at high energy saturates the previously predicted upper bound for secondary production (Katz et al 2009), obtained by neglecting radiative losses. This coincidence, which will be further tested by upcoming AMS02 data at higher energy, is a compelling indication for a secondary source. Within the secondary model the AMS02 data imply a cosmic ray propagation time in the Galax…
The AMS-02 collaboration has just published a high precision measurement of the cosmic positron fraction $e^+/(e^- + e^+)$, which rises with energy from $\sim 5$ GeV to $\sim 350$ GeV. The result indicates the existence of primary electron/positron sources to account for the positron excess. In this work, we investigate the possibility that the nearby mature pulsars are the primary positron sources. By fitting the data we find that the positrons from a single nearby pulsar, such as Geminga or Monogem, with the spectral index $α\sim 2$ can interpret the AMS-02 result. We also investigate the po…
The flux of cosmic-ray high-energy positrons has recently been measured by AMS with unprecedented precision. This flux is well above the expectation from secondary positrons made by the observed fluxes of nuclear cosmic rays impinging on the interstellar medium. Various authors have pointed out that the positron excess may originate at the primary cosmic-ray source itself, rather than in the more local ISM, thus avoiding the temptation to invoke a dark-matter decay or annihilation origin, or nearby pulsars. We investigate the possibility that the source is the one of a comprehensive model of g…
The recently reported positron fraction up to $\sim 350$ GeV by AMS-02 seems to have tension with the total electron/positron spectra detected by Fermi and HESS, for either pulsar or dark matter annihilation/decay scenario as the primary positron sources. In this work we will show that the tension will be removed by an adjustment of the primary electron spectrum. If the primary electron spectrum becomes harder above $\sim50$ GeV, similar as the cosmic ray nuclei spectrum, the AMS-02 positron fraction and Fermi/HESS data can be well fitted by both the pulsar and dark matter models. This result …
In a recent letter, the AMS collaboration reported the detailed and extensive data concerning the distribution in energy of electron and positron cosmic rays. A central result of the experimental work resides in the energy regime $30\ {\rm GeV}< E < 1\ {\rm TeV}$ wherein the power law exponent of the energy distribution is measured to be $α({\rm experiment})=3.17$. In virtue of the Fermi statistics obeyed by electrons and positrons, a theoretical value was predicted as $α({\rm theory})=3.151374$ in very good agreement with experimental data. The consequences of this agreement between theory an…
The AMS-02 has just published the unprecedentedly precise measurement of the cosmic electron and positron spectra. In this paper we try to give a quantitative study on the AMS-02 results by a global fitting to the electron and positron spectra, together with the updated positron fraction data. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm is adopted to do the fitting. The primary electron spectrum and the parameters for pulsars or dark matter which contribute extra positrons are determined simultaneously. We find that there is a hardening of the primary electron spectrum at $\sim 60$ GeV. With such a…
We study the prospects for discriminating between the dark matter (DM) and pulsar origin of the PAMELA positron excess with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02. We simulate the response of AMS-02 to positrons (and electrons) originating from DM annihilations, and determine the pulsar parameters (spin-down luminosity, distance and characteristic age) that produce a satisfactory fit to the mock AMS-02 data. It turns out that it is always possible to mimic a DM signal with pulsars. Although the fit in some cases requires values of spin-down luminosity and characteristic age different from thos…
We present a numerical simulation of cosmic ray transport in the heliosphere and show that AMS-02 should observe a decrease in the positron fraction above 40GeV compared to the fraction observed by PAMELA.
Recent observations by PAMELA, Fermi-LAT, and AMS-02 have conclusively indicated a rise in the cosmic-ray positron fraction above 10 GeV, a feature which is impossible to mimic under the paradigm of secondary positron production with self-consistent Galactic cosmic-ray propagation models. A leading explanation for the rising positron fraction is an additional source of electron-positron pairs, for example one or more mature, energetic, and relatively nearby pulsars. We point out that any one of two well-known nearby pulsars, Geminga and Monogem, can satisfactorily provide enough positrons to r…
Electron and positron fluxes in cosmic rays are currently measured with unprecedented precision by AMS-02 up to TeV energies, and represent unique probes for the local properties of our Galaxy. The interpretation of their spectra is at present still debated, especially for the excess of positrons above 10 GeV. The hypothesis that pulsars can significantly contribute to this excess has been consolidated after the observation of gamma-ray halos at TeV energies of a few degree size around Geminga and Monogem pulsars. However, the spatial and energetic Galactic distribution of pulsars and the deta…
AMS-02 recently published its lepton spectra measurement. The results show that the positron fraction no longer increases above $\sim$200 GeV. The aim of this work is to investigate the possibility that the excess of positron fraction is due to pulsars. Nearby known pulsars from ATNF catalogue are considered as a possible primary positron source of the high energy positrons. We find that the pulsars with age $T\simeq (0.45\sim4.5)\times10^{5}$ yr and distance $d<0.5$ kpc can explain the behavior of positron fraction of AMS-02 in the range of high energy. We show that each of the four pulsars -…
We derive limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section and lifetime using measurements of the AMS-02 antiproton ratio and positron fraction data. In deriving the limits, we consider the scenario of secondary particles accelerated in supernova remnants (SNRs) which has been argued to be able to reasonably account for the AMS-02 high energy positron/antiproton fraction data. We parameterize the contribution of secondary particles accelerated in SNRs and then fit the observational data within the conventional cosmic ray propagation model by adopting the GALPROP code. We use the likelihood…
The AMS-02 collaboration has just released its first result of the cosmic positron fraction $e^+/(e^-+e^+)$ with high precision up to $\sim 350$ GeV. The AMS-02 result shows the same trend with the previous PAMELA result, which requires extra electron/positron sources on top of the conventional cosmic ray background, either from astrophysical sources or from dark matter annihilation/decay. In this paper we try to figure out the nature of the extra sources by fitting to the AMS-02 $e^+/(e^-+e^+)$ data, as well as the electron and proton spectra by PAMELA and the $(e^-+e^+)$ spectrum by Fermi an…
We present here a quantitative analysis of the recent AMS-02 data with the purpose of investigating the interplay between astrophysical sources and Dark Matter in their interpretation. First, we show that AMS-02 leptonic measurements are in a remarkably good agreement with the hypothesis that all electrons and positrons are the outcome of primary or secondary astrophysical processes. Then, we add Dark Matter to the picture, in order to establish which are the informations on its annihilation cross section (or lifetime) that can be inferred by fitting AMS-02 data within a scenario in which Dark…
Recent positron flux fraction measurements in cosmic-rays (CR) made by the AMS-02 satellite confirm and extends the evidence on the existence of a new (yet unknown) source of high energy positrons. To explain this excess, we use the gravitino of bilinear R-parity violating SUSY models as a decaying Dark Matter candidate, as the source of those high energy particles. Being a long lived weak-interacting and spin 3/2 particle, it offers several particularities which makes it an attractive candidate. We compute the electron, positron and $γ$-ray\ fluxes produced by each gravitino decay channel at …
We consider indirect detection of meta-stable dark matter particles decaying into a stable neutral particle and a pair of standard model fermions. Due to the softer energy spectra from the three-body decay, such models could potentially explain the AMS-02 positron excess without being constrained by the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data and the cosmic ray anti-proton measurements. We scrutinize over different final state fermions, paying special attention to handling of the cosmic ray background and including various contributions from cosmic ray propagation with the help of the \textsc{LikeDM} package…
The spectrum and morphology of gamma-rays from the Galactic Center and the spectrum of synchrotron emission observed from the Milky Way's radio filaments have each been interpreted as possible signals of $\sim$7-10 GeV dark matter particles annihilating in the Inner Galaxy. In dark matter models capable of producing these signals, the annihilations should also generate significant fluxes of $\sim$7-10 GeV positrons which can lead to a distinctive bump-like feature in local cosmic ray positron spectrum. In this letter, we show that while such a feature would be difficult to detect with PAMELA, …
The Fermi experiment has measured the cosmic ray electron+positron spectrum and positron fraction [$Φ_{e^+}/(Φ_{e^+ + e^-})]$, and PAMELA has measured the positron fraction with better precision. While the majority of cosmic ray electrons and positrons are of astrophysical origin, there may also be a contribution from dark matter annihilation in the galactic halo. The upcoming results of the AMS experiment will show measurements of these quantities with far greater precision. One dark matter annihilation scenario is where two dark matter particles annihilate directly to $e^+$ and $e^-$ final s…
We explain the excess of the antiproton fraction recently reported by the AMS-02 experiment by considering collisions between cosmic-ray protons accelerated by a local supernova remnant (SNR) and the surrounding dense cloud. The same "$pp$-collisions" provide the right ratio of daughter particles to fit the observed positron excess simultaneously in the natural model parameters. The supernova happened in relatively lower metalicity than the major cosmic-ray sources. The cutoff energy of electrons marks the supernova age of $\sim 10^{5}$ years, while the antiproton excess may extend to higher e…
The cosmic-ray flux of positrons is measured with high precision by the space-borne particle spectrometer AMS-02. The hypothesis that pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) can significantly contribute to the excess of the positron ($e^+$) cosmic-ray flux has been consolidated after the observation of a $γ$-ray emission at TeV energies of a few degree size around Geminga and Monogem PWNe. In this work we undertake massive simulations of Galactic pulsars populations, adopting different distributions for their position in the Galaxy, intrinsic physical properties, pair emission models, in order to overcome …
Measurements of cosmic-ray (CR) positron fraction by PAMELA and other experiments have found an excess above 10 GeV relative to the standard predictions for secondary production in the interstellar medium (ISM). Although the excess has been mostly suggested to arise from some primary sources of positrons (such as pulsars and or annihilating dark matter particles), the almost constant flux ratio of $e^{+}/ \bar{p}$ argues for an alternative possibility that the excess positrons and antiprotons up to the highest energies are secondary products generated in hadronic interactions. Recently, Yang \…
We consider dark matter annihilation into a general set of final states of Standard Model particles, including two-body and four-body final states that result from the decay of intermediate states. For dark matter masses ~10-10^5 GeV, we use updated data from Planck and from high gamma-ray experiments such as Fermi-LAT, MAGIC, and VERITAS to constrain the annihilation cross section for each final state. The Planck constraints are the most stringent over the entire mass range for annihilation into light leptons, and the Fermi-LAT constraints are the most stringent for four-body final states up …
We show that no dark matter model with the conventional isotropic density distribution can provide a satisfactory explanation of the cosmic positron excess, while being consistent with Fermi-LAT data on diffuse gamma-ray background.
Recently, an excess of high energy positrons in our Galaxy has been observed by AMS-02. The spectrum obtained can be best fitted with the annihilation of $\sim$ TeV dark matter particles. However, recent analysis of Dwarf galaxies by Fermi/LAT observations highly constrains the TeV dark matter annihilation cross-section, and rules out the $b\bar{b}$ and all the leptophilic channels except $4-μ$ channel. In this article, I show that the remaining possible $4-μ$ channel is also ruled out by using the observational data from cool-core clusters. Therefore, all the leptophilic channels that can acc…
We study the cosmic ray antiprotons with updated constraints on the propagation, proton injection, and solar modulation parameters based on the newest AMS-02 data near the Earth and Voyager data in the local interstellar space, and on the cross section of antiproton production due to proton-proton collisions based on new collider data. We use a Bayesian approach to properly consider the uncertainties of the model predictions of both the background and the dark matter (DM) annihilation components of antiprotons. We find that including an extra component of antiprotons from the annihilation of D…
We perform a detailed quantitative analysis of the recent AMS-02 electron and positron data. We investigate the interplay between the emission from primary astrophysical sources, namely Supernova Remnants and Pulsar Wind Nebulae, and the contribution from a dark matter annihilation or decay signal. Our aim is to assess the information that can be derived on dark matter properties when both dark matter and primary astrophysical sources are assumed to jointly contribute to the leptonic observables measured by the AMS-02 experiment. We investigate both the possibility to set robust constraints on…
The AMS-02 detector is operating on the International Space Station since May 2011. More than 30 billion events have been collected by the instrument in the first two years of data taking. A precision measurement of the positron fraction and of the positron flux in primary cosmic rays up to 350 GeV, of the electron flux up to 500 GeV and of the combined electron plus positron flux up to 700 GeV are presented. The separate and combined electron and positron fluxes are preliminary and represent work in progress. Systematic uncertainties must still be investigated further.
The AMS-02 collaboration has just released the cosmic antiproton to proton ratio $\bar{p}/p$ with a high precision up to $\sim 450$ GeV. In this work, we calculate the secondary antiprotons generated by cosmic ray interactions with the interstellar medium taking into account the uncertainties from the cosmic ray propagation. The $\bar{p}/p$ ratio predicted by these processes shows some tension with the AMS-02 data in some regions of propagation parameters, but the excess is not significant. We then try to derive upper bounds on the dark matter annihilation cross section from the $\bar{p}/p$ da…
We present a simple calculation of the flux of secondary positrons produced in the ISM that is based only on priors. Our calculated ISM flux agrees very well with that calculated with the elaborate GALPROP code. It confirms that secondary production of positrons in the ISM by the primary cosmic rays cannot explain the observed sub-TeV flux of CR positrons. Moreover, we show that once energy loss of positrons in source and in the ISM are included, secondary production inside the CR sources plus the ISM does explain the measured near-Earth flux of cosmic ray positrons.
The data collected by ATIC, CREAM and PAMELA all display remarkable cosmic-ray-nuclei spectrum hardening above the magnetic rigidity $\sim$ 240 GV. One natural speculation is that the primary electron spectrum also gets hardened (possibly at $\sim 80$ GV) and the hardening partly accounts for the electron/positron total spectrum excess discovered by ATIC, HESS and Fermi-LAT. If it is the case, the increasing behavior of the subsequent positron-to-electron ratio will get flattened and the spectrum hardening should be taken into account in the joint fit of the electron/psoitron data otherwise th…
We discuss challenges to a dark matter annihilation interpretation of the excess positron fraction in the cosmic rays observed by the PAMELA, Fermi-LAT and AMS-02 collaborations. The spectra of positrons from annihilations into the leptonic two-body final states like $τ^+ τ^-$ or $μ^+ μ^-$, fit well the AMS-02 data for the positron ratio and the electron flux. Furthermore, we discuss the hadronic annihilation channels $b \bar{b}$ and $W^+ W^-$. However, this interpretation requires a very large annihilation cross section especially for the hadronic channels, conflicting with the unitarity uppe…
The local pulsar and its progenitor, SNR, can together accelerate the positron, electron and nuclei to very high energy. The famous excesses of positron(nuclei) above $20$($200$) GeV possibly come from such kind of local source. This hints that the primary electron should also hold "excess" above $200$ GeV, synchronously accelerated along with the nuclei. The recent precise measurement of sharp dropoff at 284 GeV of positron by AMS-02 experiment takes chance to study this expected electron excess. In this work, the spatially-dependent propagation with a local source is used to reproduce the sp…
Using the latest AMS-02 cosmic ray antiproton flux data, we search for potential dark matter annihilation signal. The background parameters about the propagation, source injection, and solar modulation are not assumed {\it a priori}, but based on the results inferred from the recent B/C ratio and proton data measurements instead. The possible dark matter signal is incorporated into the model self-consistently under a Bayesian framework. Compared with the astrophysical background only hypothesis, we find that a dark matter signal is favored. The rest mass of the dark matter particles is $\sim 2…
We propose a dark matter explanation to simultaneously account for the excess of antiproton-to-proton and positron power spectra observed in the AMS-02 experiment while having the right dark matter relic abundance and satisfying the current direct search bounds. We extend the Higgs triplet model with a hidden gauge symmetry of $SU(2)_X$ that is broken to $Z_3$ by a quadruplet scalar field, rendering the associated gauge bosons stable weakly-interacting massive particle dark matter candidates. By coupling the complex Higgs triplet and the $SU(2)_X$ quadruplet, the dark matter candidates can ann…
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 revisit the multi-component leptonically decaying dark matter (DM) scenario to explain the possible electron/positron excesses with the recently updated AMS-02 data. We find that both the single- and two-component DM models can fit the positron fraction and $e^+/e^-$ respective fluxes, in which the two-component ones provide better fits. However, for the single-component models, the recent AMS-02 data on the positron fraction limit the DM cutoff to be smaller than 1 TeV, which conflicts with the high-energy behavior of the AMS-02 total $e^++e^-$ flux spectrum, while the two-component DM mod…
The operation of AMS-02 opens a new era for the study of cosmic ray physics with unprecedentedly precise data which are comparable with the laboratory measurements. The high precision data allow a quantitative study on the cosmic ray physics and give strict constraints on the nature of cosmic ray sources. However, the intrinsic errors from the theoretical models to interpret the data become dominant over the errors in the data. In the present work we try to give a systematic study on the uncertainties of the models to explain the AMS-02 positron fraction data, which shows the cosmic ray $e^+e^…
We model the CR leptonic fluxes above 20 GeV in terms of a superposition of a standard and a charge symmetric extra component, which we generically describe as power-laws in momentum. We investigate under these hypotheses the compatibility between AMS-02, Fermi-LAT and PAMELA datasets on positron fraction, electron+positron spectrum and electron spectrum respectively. We find that it is possible to reconcile AMS and Fermi-LAT data within uncertainties, if energy-dependent effects are present in Fermi-LAT systematics. We also study possible deviations from charge symmetry in the extra component…
We revisit the model proposed earlier to account for the observed increase in the positron fraction in cosmic rays with increasing energy, in the light of new data from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) experiment. The model accounts for the production and acceleration of secondary electrons and positrons in nearby supernova remnants which results in an additional, harder component that becomes dominant at high energies. By fitting this to AMS-02 data we can calculate the expected concomitant rise of the boron-to-carbon ratio, as well as of the fraction of antiprotons. If these predicti…
The first measurement on the antiproton to proton ratio made by the AMS-02 collaboration agrees with the expection from conventional cosmic-ray secondaries in the kinetic energy range $\sim 10-100$ GeV, which can be turned into stringent upper limits on the dark matter (DM) annihilation cross sections above $\sim 300$ GeV. Using the GALPROP code, we derive the upper limits in various propagation models and DM profiles. We show that in the "conventional" propagation model, for the $q\bar q$, $b\bar b$, and $WW$ final states, the constraints can be more stringent than that derived from the recen…
The long standing anomaly in the positron flux as measured by the PAMELA and AMS-02 experiments could potentially be explained by dark matter (DM) annihilations. This scenario typically requires a large "boost factor" to be consistent with a thermal relic dark matter candidate produced via freeze-out. However, such an explanation is disfavored by constraints from CMB observations on energy deposition during the epoch of recombination. We discuss a scenario called late-decaying two-component dark matter (LD2DM), where the entire DM consists of two semi-degenerate species. Within this framework,…
Until fairly recently, it was widely accepted that local cosmic ray spectra were largely featureless power laws, containing limited information on their acceleration and transport. This viewpoint is currently being revised in the light of evidence for a variety of spectral breaks in the fluxes of cosmic ray nuclei. Here, we focus on cosmic ray electrons and positrons which at the highest energies must be of local origin due to strong radiative losses. We consider a pure diffusion model for their Galactic transport and determine its free parameters by fitting data in a wide energy range: measur…
As the TeV halos around Geminga and PSR B0656+14 have been confirmed by HAWC, slow diffusion of cosmic rays could be general around pulsars, and the cosmic positron spectrum from pulsars could be significantly changed. As a consequence, the most likely pulsar source of the positron excess, Geminga, is no more a viable candidate under the additional constraint from Fermi-LAT. Moreover, the latest measurement by AMS-02 shows a clear cutoff in the positron spectrum, which sets a strict constraint on the age of the pulsar source. Considering these new developments we reanalyze the scenario in this…
We examine the annihilation of positrons on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules in interstellar medium conditions. We estimate the annihilation rates of positrons on PAHs by a semi-empirical approach. We show that PAHs can play a significant role in the overall galactic positron annihilation picture and use the annihilation rates and INTEGRAL galactic emission measurements to constrain the amount of PAHs present in the ISM. We find an upper limit of 4.6 x 10^-7 for the PAH abundance.
We have witnessed in the past decade the observation of a puzzling cosmic-ray excess at energies larger than $10$ GeV. The AMS-02 data published this year has new ingredients such as the bump around $300$ GeV followed by a drop at $800$ GeV, as well as smaller error bars. Adopting the background used by the AMS-02 collaboration in their analysis, one can conclude that previous explanations to the new AMS-02 such as one component annihilating and decaying dark matter as well as pulsars seem to fail at reproducing the data. Here, we show that in the right-handed neutrino portal might reside the …
The measurements of electrons from cosmic rays have begun a new era a few years ago with high precision experiments like PAMELA and Fermi-LAT. The positron fraction seems to indicate an unknown component above the standard background described in the last 40 years, mostly by HEAT. In the last few years, the PAMELA satellite has confirmed the positron fraction excess above 10 GeV, and studying Fermi-LAT data, the electron flux seems to be steeper than expected. While these new measurements have not closed the debate, results from AMS-02 are expected to reach the accuracy needed to determine a f…
A precision measurement by AMS-02 of the positron fraction in primary cosmic rays is presented on this proceeding. Over the last two decades, there has been a strong interest in the cosmic ray positron fraction which exhibit an excess of high energy positrons whose origin is still highly uncertain. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a general purpose high-energy particle physics detector operational on the International Space Station since May 2011. During its unique long duration mission AMS-02 is collecting large amount of data to study the behavior of cosmic ray electrons and posit…
There is convincing observational evidence for an increasing cosmic-ray positron-to-electron ratio at energies larger than $\sim 10$~GeV, at odds with expectations from secondary positron production. The most recent AMS-02 data exhibit an interesting spectral feature consisting of a bump at an energy around $300$~GeV followed by a drop around $\sim 800$~GeV. A possible explanation to the most recent data is that the excess positron originates from decaying dark matter. Here, we show that models consisting of two dark matter particle species contributing equally to the global cosmological dark …
The magnetised solar wind modulates the Galactic cosmic ray flux in the heliosphere up to rigidities as high as 40 GeV. In this work, we present a new and straightforward extension of the popular, but limited force-field model, thus providing a fast and robust method for phenomenological studies of Galactic cosmic rays. Our semi-analytical approach takes into account charge-sign dependent modulation due to drifts in the heliospheric magnetic field and has been validated via comparison to a fully numerical code. Our model nicely reproduces the time-dependent AMS-02 measurements and we find the …
We construct a thermal dark matter model with annihilation mediated by a resonance to explain the positron excess observed by PAMELA, Fermi-LAT and AMS-02, while satisfying constraints from cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements. The challenging requirement is that the resonance has twice the dark matter mass to one part in a million. We achieve this by introducing an $SU(3)_f$ dark flavor symmetry that is spontaneously broken to $SU(2)_f \times U(1)_f$. The resonance is the heaviest state in the dark matter flavor multiplet and the required mass relation is protected by the vacuum str…
A number of papers attempt to explain the positron anomaly in cosmic rays, observed by PAMELA and AMS-02, in terms of dark matter (DM) decays or annihilations. However, the recent progress in cosmic gamma-ray studies challenges these attempts. Indeed, as we show, any rational DM model explaining the positron anomaly abundantly produces final state radiation and Inverse Compton gamma rays, which inevitably leads to a contradiction with Fermi-LAT isotropic diffuse gamma-ray background measurements. Furthermore, the Fermi-LAT observation of Milky Way dwarf satellites, supposed to be rich in DM, r…
The two messenger results of the GeV gamma-ray excess at the Galactic center and a probable antiproton excess in the recent AMS-02 observation suggest that these two anomalies may be owing to the same origin --- the dark matter (DM) annihilation into $b \bar b$, while these results seem in tension with the dwarf spheroidal galaxy observations. To give a compatible explanation about it, we consider the pseudoscalar DM particles $S_d^+ S_d^-$ annihilating via $S_d^+ S_d^- \rightarrow S_d^0 S_d^0$, with the process mediated by a new scalar $ϕ$ and $S_d^0$ quickly decaying into $b \bar{b}$. For th…
Observations of cosmic rays are a sensitive probe of dark matter annihilation in our Galaxy. In this article we present an analysis of the AMS-02 antiproton data, reducing cosmic-ray propagation uncertainties by fitting at the same time dark matter and propagation parameters. The result exhibits a possible hint for dark matter pointing to an annihilation cross section close to the thermal value. We investigate the compatibility of this signal with a dark matter interpretation of the Galactic center excess seen in the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data and discuss implications for dark matter models.
Antimatter cosmic-rays are used to probe new phenomena in physics, including dark matter annihilation. We use the cosmic-ray positron fraction spectrum by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, to search for such an annihilation signal in the Galaxy. We focus on dark matter with mass between 5 and 120 GeV, producing high-energy electrons and positrons. In these cosmic-ray energies the interplay of multiple astrophysical sources and phenomena, makes this search highly sensitive to the underlying astrophysical background assumptions. We use a vast public library of astrophysical models for the cosmic-…
