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Register a new userCosmic-ray antiproton constraints on light dark matter candidates
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Julien Lavalle
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Some direct detection experiments have recently collected excess events that could be interpreted as a dark matter (DM) signal, pointing to particles in the $sim$10 GeV mass range. We show that scenarios in which DM can self-annihilate with significant couplings to quarks are likely excluded by the cosmic-ray (CR) antiproton data, provided the annihilation is S-wave dominated when DM decouples in the early universe. These limits apply to most of supersymmetric candidates, eg in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and in the next-to-MSSM (NMSSM), and more generally to any thermal DM particle with hadronizing annihilation final states.
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The CoGeNT experiment, dedicated to direct detection of dark matter, has recently released excess events that could be interpreted as elastic collisions of $sim$10 GeV dark matter particles, which might simultaneously explain the still mysterious DAMA/LIBRA modulation signals, while in conflict with results from other experiments such as CDMS, XENON-100 and SIMPLE. It was shown that 5-15 GeV singlino-like dark matter candidates arising in singlet extensions of minimal supersymmetric scenarios can fit these data; annihilation then mostly proceeds into light singlet-dominated Higgs (pseudo)scalar fields. We develop an effective Lagrangian approach to confront these models with the existing data on cosmic-ray antiprotons, including the latest PAMELA data. Focusing on a parameter space consistent with the CoGeNT region, we show that the predicted antiproton flux is generically in tension with the data whenever the produced (pseudo)scalars can decay into quarks energetic enough to produce antiprotons, provided the annihilation S-wave is significant at freeze out in the early universe. In this regime, a bound on the singlino annihilation cross section is obtained, $sigvlesssim 10^{-26},{rm cm^3/s}$, assuming a dynamically constrained halo density profile with a local value of $rho_odot = 0.4,{rm GeV/cm^3}$. Finally, we provide indications on how PAMELA or AMS-02 could further constrain or detect those configurations producing antiprotons which are not yet excluded.
MeV dark matter (DM) particles annihilating or decaying to electron-positron pairs cannot, in principle, be observed via local cosmic-ray (CR) measurements because of the shielding solar magnetic field. In this letter, we take advantage of spacecraft Voyager 1s capacity for detecting interstellar CRs since it crossed the heliopause in 2012. This opens up a new avenue to probe DM in the sub-GeV energy/mass range that we exploit here for the first time. From a complete description of the transport of electrons and positrons at low energy, we derive predictions for both the secondary astrophysical background and the pair production mechanisms relevant to DM annihilation or decay down to the MeV mass range. Interestingly, we show that reacceleration may push positrons up to energies larger than the DM particle mass. We combine the constraints from the Voyager and AMS-02 data to get novel limits covering a very extended DM particle mass range, from MeV to TeV. In the MeV mass range, our limits reach annihilation cross sections of order $langle sigma vrangle sim 10^{-28}{rm cm^3/s}$. An interesting aspect is that these limits barely depend on the details of cosmic-ray propagation in the weak reacceleration case, a configuration which seems to be favored by the most recent boron-to-carbon ($B/C$) data. Though extracted from a completely different and new probe, these bounds have a strength similar to those obtained with the cosmic microwave background --- they are even more stringent for $p$-wave annihilation.
We investigate the implications on the dark matter (DM) signal from the AMS-02 cosmic antiproton flux. Global fits to the data are performed under different propagation and hadronic interaction models. The uncertainties from the injection spectrum, propagation effects and solar modulation of the cosmic rays are taken into account comprehensively. Since we need to investigate extended parameter regions with multiple free parameters in the fit, the machine learning method is adopted to maintain a realistic time cost. We find all the effects considered in the fitting process interplay with each other, among which the hadronic interaction model is the most important factor affecting the result. In most hadronic interaction and CR propagation models no DM signal is found with significance larger than $2sigma$ except that the EPOS-LHC interaction model requires a more than $3sigma$ DM signal with DM mass around $1,mathrm{TeV}$. For the diffusive reacceleration propagation model there is a highly significant DM signal with mass around $100,mathrm{GeV}$. However, the signal becomes less than $1sigma$ if we take a charge dependent solar modulation potential in the analysis.
The direct detection of particle dark matter through its scattering with nucleons is of fundamental importance to understand the nature of DM. In this work, we propose that the high-energy neutrino detectors like IceCube can be used to uniquely probe the DM-nucleon cross-section for high-energy DM of $sim$ PeV, up-scattered by the high-energy cosmic rays. We derive for the first time strong constraints on the DM-nucleon cross-section down to $sim 10^{-32}$ cm$^2$ at this energy scale for sub-GeV DM candidates. Such independent probe at energy scale far exceeding other existing direct detection experiments can therefore provide useful insights complementary to other searches.
We recently proposed a method to constrain $s$-wave annihilating MeV dark matter from a combination of the Voyager 1 and the AMS-02 data on cosmic-ray electrons and positrons. Voyager 1 actually provides an unprecedented probe of dark matter annihilation to cosmic rays down to $sim 10$ MeV in an energy range where the signal is mostly immune to uncertainties in cosmic-ray propagation. In this article, we derive for the first time new constraints on $p$-wave annihilation down to the MeV mass range using cosmic-ray data. To proceed, we derive a self-consistent velocity distribution for the dark matter across the Milky Way by means of the Eddington inversion technique and its extension to anisotropic systems. As inputs, we consider state-of-the-art Galactic mass models including baryons and constrained on recent kinematic data. They allow for both a cored or a cuspy halo. We then calculate the flux of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons induced by $p$-wave annihilating dark matter and obtain very stringent limits in the MeV mass range, robustly excluding cross sections greater than $sim 10^{-22}{rm cm^3/s}$ (including theoretical uncertainties), about 5 orders of magnitude better than current CMB constraints. This limit assumes that dark matter annihilation is the sole source of cosmic rays and could therefore be made even more stringent when reliable models of astrophysical backgrounds are included.
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