No Arabic abstract
Indirect searches can be used to test dark matter models against expected signals in various channels, in particular antiprotons. With antiproton data available soon at higher and higher energies, it is important to test the dark matter hypothesis against alternative astrophysical sources, e.g. secondaries accelerated in supernova remnants. We investigate the two signals from different dark models and different supernova remnant parameters, as forecasted for the AMS-02, and show that they present a significant degeneracy.
We study a simple extension of the Standard Model supplemented by an electroweak triplet scalar field to accommodate small neutrino masses by the type-II seesaw mechanism, while an additional singlet scalar field can play the role of cold dark matter (DM) in our Universe. This DM candidate is leptophilic for a wide range of model parameter space, and the lepton flux due to its annihilation carries information about the neutrino mass hierarchy. Using the recently released high precision data on positron fraction and flux from the AMS-02 experiment, we examine the DM interpretation of the observed positron excess in our model for two kinematically distinct scenarios with the DM and triplet scalar masses (a) non-degenerate ($m_{rm DM}gg m_{Delta}$), and (b) quasi-degenerate ($m_{rm DM} simeq m_Delta$). We find that a good fit to the AMS-02 data can be obtained in both cases (a) and (b) with a normal hierarchy of neutrino masses, while the inverted hierarchy case is somewhat disfavored. Although we require a larger boost factor for the normal hierarchy case, this is still consistent with the current upper limits derived from Fermi-LAT and IceCube data for case (a). Moreover, the absence of an excess anti-proton flux as suggested by PAMELA data sets an indirect upper limit on the DM-nucleon spin-independent elastic scattering cross section which is stronger than the existing DM direct detection bound from LUX in the AMS-02 preferred DM mass range.
The supersymmetric model is one of the most attractive extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. In light of the most recently reported anomaly of the muon g-2 measurement by the FermiLab E989 experiment, and the excesses of gamma rays at the Galactic center observed by Fermi-LAT space telescope, as well as the antiproton excess observed by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, we propose to account for all these anomalies or excesses in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Considering various experimental constraints including the Higgs mass, B-physics, collider data, dark matter relic density and direct detections, we find that a $sim 60$ GeV bino-like neutralino is able to successfully explain all these observations. Our scenario can be sensitively probed by future direct detection experiments.
We discuss the origin of the anti-helium-3 and -4 events possibly detected by AMS-02. Using up-to-date semi-analytical tools, we show that spallation from primary hydrogen and helium nuclei onto the ISM predicts a $overline{{}^3{rm He}}$ flux typically one to two orders of magnitude below the sensitivity of AMS-02 after 5 years, and a $overline{{}^4{rm He}}$ flux roughly 5 orders of magnitude below the AMS-02 sensitivity. We argue that dark matter annihilations face similar difficulties in explaining this event. We then entertain the possibility that these events originate from anti-matter-dominated regions in the form of anti-clouds or anti-stars. In the case of anti-clouds, we show how the isotopic ratio of anti-helium nuclei might suggest that BBN has happened in an inhomogeneous manner, resulting in anti-regions with a anti-baryon-to-photon ratio $bar{eta}simeq10^{-3}eta$. We discuss properties of these regions, as well as relevant constraints on the presence of anti-clouds in our Galaxy. We present constraints from the survival of anti-clouds in the Milky-Way and in the early Universe, as well as from CMB, gamma-ray and cosmic-ray observations. In particular, these require the anti-clouds to be almost free of normal matter. We also discuss an alternative where anti-domains are dominated by surviving anti-stars. We suggest that part of the unindentified sources in the 3FGL catalog can originate from anti-clouds or anti-stars. AMS-02 and GAPS data could further probe this scenario.
The AMS-02 collaboration has recently released data on the positron fraction $e^+/(e^-+e^+)$ up to energies of about 350 GeV. If one insists on interpreting the observed excess as a dark matter signal, then we find it is best described by a TeV-scale dark matter annihilating into $tau^+tau^-$, although this situation is already severely constrained by gamma-ray measurements. The annihilation into $mu^+mu^-$ is allowed by gamma-rays more than $tau^+tau^-$, but it gives a poorer fit to textsc{AMS-02} data. Moreover, since electroweak corrections induce correlations among the fluxes of stable particles from dark matter annihilations, the recent AMS-02 data imply a well-defined prediction for the correlated flux of antiprotons. Under the assumption that their future measurements will not show any antiproton excess above the background, the dark matter interpretation of the positron rise will possibly be ruled out by only making use of data from a single experiment. This work is the first of a program where we emphasize the role of correlations among dark matter signals.
The electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) of the AMS-02 experiment is a 3-dimensional sampling calorimeter, made of lead and scintillating fibers. The detector allows for a high granularity, with 18 samplings in the longitudinal direction, and 72 sampling in the lateral direction. The ECAL primary goal is to measure the energy of cosmic rays up to few TeV, however, thanks to the fine grained structure, it can also provide the separation of positrons from protons, in the GeV to TeV region. A direct measurement of high energy photons with accurate energy and direction determination can also be provided.