Model-independent indirect detection constraints on hidden sector dark matter
Author(s)
Elor, Gilly
Rodd, Nicholas Llewellyn
Slatyer, Tracy Robyn
Xue, Wei
Date Issued
June 2016
Journal
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Publisher
Institute of Physics Publishing/SISSA
Citation
Elor, Gilly, Nicholas L. Rodd, Tracy R. Slatyer, and Wei Xue. “Model-Independent Indirect Detection Constraints on Hidden Sector Dark Matter.” Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2016, no. 06 (June 10, 2016): 024–024.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
If dark matter inhabits an expanded ``hidden sector'', annihilations may proceed through sequential decays or multi-body final states. We map out the potential signals and current constraints on such a framework in indirect searches, using a model-independent setup based on multi-step hierarchical cascade decays. While remaining agnostic to the details of the hidden sector model, our framework captures the generic broadening of the spectrum of secondary particles (photons, neutrinos, e+e− and p̄ p) relative to the case of direct annihilation to Standard Model particles. We explore how indirect constraints on dark matter annihilation limit the parameter space for such cascade/multi-particle decays. We investigate limits from the cosmic microwave background by Planck, the Fermi measurement of photons from the dwarf galaxies, and positron data from AMS-02. The presence of a hidden sector can change the constraints on the dark matter by up to an order of magnitude in either direction (although the effect can be much smaller). We find that generally the bound from the Fermi dwarfs is most constraining for annihilations to photon-rich final states, while AMS-02 is most constraining for electron and muon final states; however in certain instances the CMB bounds overtake both, due to their approximate independence on the details of the hidden sector cascade. We provide the full set of cascade spectra considered here as publicly available code with examples at http://web.mit.edu/lns/research/CascadeSpectra.html.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2016/06/024
