The observed anomalous excess of high-energy cosmic ray (CR) positrons is widely discussed as possible indirect evidence for dark matter (DM). However, any source of cosmic positrons is inevitably the source of gamma radiation. The least model dependent test of CR anomalies interpretation via DM particles decays (or annihilation) is connected with gamma-ray background due to gamma overproduction in such processes. In this work, we impose an observational constraint on gamma ray production from DM. Then, we study the possible suppression of gamma yield in the DM decays into identical final fermions. Such DM particles arise in the multi-component dark atom model. The influence of the interaction vertices on the gamma suppression was also considered. No essential gamma suppression effects are found. However, some minor ones are revealed.
We introduce a new type of gamma-ray spectral feature, which we denominate gamma-ray triangle. This spectral feature arises in scenarios where dark matter self-annihilates via a chiral interaction into two Dirac fermions, which subsequently decay in flight into another fermion and a photon. The resulting photon spectrum resembles a sharp triangle and can be readily searched for in the gamma-ray sky. Using data from the Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S. instruments, we find no evidence for such spectral feature and therefore set strong upper bounds on the corresponding annihilation cross section. A concre…
The impact of gamma-ray propagation effects on indirect dark matter searches
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学）；Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT)（能源、环境和技术中心）；Instituto de Física Teórica, IFT UAM-CSIC（理论物理研究所）；Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Sorbonne Université（巴黎天体物理学研究所，索邦大学）；Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et des Hautes Énergies, Sorbonne Université（核物理与高能实验室，索邦大学）
We show that the observed fluxes, spectra and sky distributions of the high energy diffuse backgrounds of astronomical neutrinos, gamma rays and cosmic ray positrons satisfy simple relations expected from their common production in hadronic collisions of high energy cosmic rays (CRs) with diffuse matter. This provides compelling evidence that the high energy neutrino, gamma ray, and positron backgrounds have a common origin - hadronic meson production by cosmic rays in our Galaxy and in external galaxies rather than through the decay/annihilation of dark matter particles.
The distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy at energies above few TeVs is still uncertain and this affects the expectations for the diffuse gamma flux produced by hadronic interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar gas. We show that the TeV gamma-ray sky can provide interesting constraints. Namely, we compare the flux from the galactic plane measured by Argo-YBJ, HESS, HAWC and Milagro with the expected flux due to diffuse emission and point-like and extended sources observed by HESS showing that experimental data can already discriminate among different hyphoteses for cosmic ray dist…
I show that pair production on sunlight introduces a sizable anisotropy in the cosmic background of TeV gamma-rays. The anisotropy amplitude in the direction of the Sun exceeds the cosmic dipole anisotropy from the motion of the Sun relative to the cosmic rest-frame.
The Glashow resonance as a discriminator of UHE cosmic neutrinos originating from p-gamma and p-p collisions
We re-examine the interesting possibility of utilizing the Glashow resonance (GR) channel nu_ebar + e^- to W^- to anything to discriminate between the UHE cosmic neutrinos originating from p-gamma and pp collisions in an optically thin source of cosmic rays . We propose a general parametrization of the initial neutrino flavor composition by allowing the ratios Phi^{p gamma}_{pi^-}/Phi^{p gamma}_{pi^+} and Phi^{pp}_{pi^-}/Phi^{pp}_{pi^+} to slightly deviate from their conventional values. A relationship between the typical source parameter kappa = (Phi^{p gamma}_{pi^+} + Phi^{p gamma}_{pi^-})/(…
Very recently, the Pierre Auger Collaboration reported a $4.5σ$ correlation between the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays and nearby starburst galaxies. The cosmic rays producing the anisotropy signal have been proposed to originate in low-luminosity gamma-ray bursts (llGRBs). On the basis of the well-justified assumption that at redshift $z<0.3$ the host metallicity is a good indicator of the llGRB production rate, we show that the association of llGRBs and the starbursts correlating with Auger data is excluded at the 90% confidence level.
The quest for the elusive dark matter (DM) that permeates the Universe (and in general the search for signatures of Physics beyond the Standard Model at astronomical scales) provides a unique opportunity and a tough challenge to the high-energy astrophysics community. In particular, the so-called DM indirect searches - mostly focused on a class of theoretically well-motivated DM candidates such as the weakly-interacting massive particles - are affected by a complex astrophysical background of cosmic radiation. The understanding and modeling of such background requires a deep comprehension of a…
The self-annihilation of dark matter particles with mass in the MeV range can produce gamma rays via prompt or secondary radiation. The annihilation rate for such light dark matter particles is however tightly constrained by cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. Here we explore the possibility of discovering MeV dark matter annihilation with future MeV gamma-ray telescopes taking into account the latest and future CMB constraints. We study the optimal energy window as a function of the dominant annihilation final state. We consider both the (conservative) case of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy …
Multiple space-borne cosmic ray detectors have detected line-like features in the electron and positron spectra. Most recently, the DAMPE collaboration reported the existence of such a feature at 1.4 TeV, sparking interest in a potential dark matter origin. Such quasi-monochromatic features, virtually free of any astrophysical background, could be explained by the annihilation of dark matter particles in a nearby dark matter clump. Here, we explore the consistency of producing such spectral features with dark matter annihilation from the standpoint of dark matter substructure statistics, const…
With several proposed MeV gamma-ray telescopes on the horizon, it is of paramount importance to perform accurate calculations of gamma-ray spectra expected from sub-GeV dark matter annihilation and decay. We present hazma, a python package for reliably computing these spectra, determining the resulting constraints from existing gamma-ray data, and prospects for upcoming telescopes. For high-level analyses, hazma comes with several built-in dark matter models where the interactions between dark matter and hadrons have been determined in detail using chiral perturbation theory. Additionally, haz…
We study the possibility that an extended cosmic-ray leptonic and/or hadronic halo is at the origin of the large-scale gamma-ray emission detected from the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). We consider a broad ensemble of non-homogeneous diffusion scenarios and of cosmic-ray injection sources. We find that cosmic-ray electrons and protons could be, and very likely are, responsible for part, or all, of the gamma-ray emission from M31, including out to more than 100 kpc from the center of the galaxy. We also simulate possible emission from pulsars in M31, and consider the effect of regions of highly ineff…
The gluon condensation effect in cosmic proton-proton collisions at high energy is used to explain an excess in the positron spectrum observed by AMS. We find that this excess may originate from the GC-effect in Tycho's supernova remnant.
In these lectures, I describe a variety of efforts to identify or constrain the identity of dark matter by detecting the annihilation or decay products of these particles, or their effects. After reviewing the motivation for indirect searches, I discuss what we have learned about dark matter from observations of gamma rays, cosmic rays and neutrinos, as well as the cosmic microwave background. Measurements such as these have been used to significantly constrain a wide range of thermal relic dark matter candidates, in particular those with masses below a few hundred GeV. I also discuss a number…
We revisit the simplest model for dark matter. In this context the dark matter candidate is a real scalar field which interacts with the Standard Model particles through the Higgs portal. We discuss the relic density constraints as well as the predictions for direct and indirect detection. The final state radiation processes are investigated in order to understand the visibility of the gamma lines from dark matter annihilation. We find two regions where one could observe the gamma lines at gamma-ray telescopes. We point out that the region where the dark matter mass is between 92 and 300 GeV c…
GRAMS (Gamma-Ray and AntiMatter Survey) is a novel project that can simultaneously target both astrophysical observations with MeV gamma rays and an indirect dark matter search with antimatter. The GRAMS instrument is designed with a cost-effective, large-scale LArTPC (Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber) detector surrounded by plastic scintillators. The astrophysical observations at MeV energies have not yet been well-explored (the so-called "MeV-gap") and GRAMS can improve the sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous experiments. While primarily focusing on MeV ga…
We propose the existence of a hidden or dark sector besides the standard model (SM) of particle physics, whose members (both fermionic and bosonic) obey a local SU(2)$_{\rm H}$ gauge symmetry while behaving like a singlet under the SM gauge group. However, the fermiomic fields of the dark sector also possess another global U(1)$_{\rm H}$ symmetry which remains unbroken. The local SU(2)$_{\rm H}$ invariance of the dark sector is broken spontaneously when a scalar field in this sector acquires a vacuum expectation value (VEV) and thereby generating masses to the dark gauge bosons and dark fermio…
The latest IceCube data suggest that the all-flavor cosmic neutrino flux may be as large as 10^-7 GeV/cm^2/s/sr around 30 TeV. We show that, if sources of the TeV-PeV neutrinos are transparent to gamma rays with respect to two-photon annihilation, strong tensions with the isotropic diffuse gamma-ray background measured by Fermi are unavoidable, independently of the production mechanism. We further show that, if the IceCube neutrinos have a photohadronic (pgamma) origin, the sources are expected to be opaque to 1-100 GeV gamma rays. With these general multimessenger arguments, we find that the …
Measuring high energy cosmic ray electrons/positrons (CRE) provides important means for the dark matter (DM) indirect detection and for probing the nearby galactic sources. In this work, we perform a systematic analysis of the flavor structure of DM annihilations into charged leptons based on the cosmic ray CRE spectra measured by DAMPE, Fermi-LAT, AMS-02, and CALET experiments. We study the annihilations of possible TeV scale DM particles in a nearby subhalo, which is proposed to explain the possible peak-like structure of the DAMPE CRE data. We pay special attention to the possible non-reson…
