showing 12 related works from this author
Fitting formulae for photon spectra from WIMP annihilation
2011
Annihilation of different dark matter (DM) candidates into Standard Model (SM) particles could be detected through their contribution to the gamma ray fluxes that are measured on the Earth. The magnitude of such contributions depends on the particular DM candidate, but certain imprints of produced photon spectra may be analyzed in a model-independent fashion. In this work we provide the fitting formulae for the photon spectra generated by WIMP annihilation into quarks, leptons and gauge bosons channels in a wide range of WIMP masses.
Galactic synchrotron emission from astrophysical electrons
2012
The interaction between the galactic magnetic field and the non-thermal population of electrons is responsible for a large part of the radio sky from 10 MHz up to several GHz. This population is mostly composed of electrons with primary and secondary origin. Cosmic ray propagation models describe their evolution in space and energy, and allow to study the impact on the radio sky in intensity and morphology at different frequencies. We consider different propagation models and test their compatibility with available radio maps. We find models highly consistent both with B/C data, the local electron flux and synchrotron emission observations. The resulting constraints on propagation models co…
Possibility of a dark matter interpretation for the excess in isotropic radio emission reported by ARCADE.
2011
The ARCADE 2 Collaboration has recently measured an isotropic radio emission which is significantly brighter than the expected contributions from known extra-galactic sources. The simplest explanation of such excess involves a ``new'' population of unresolved sources which become the most numerous at very low (observationally unreached) brightness. We investigate this scenario in terms of synchrotron radiation induced by weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) annihilations or decays in extra-galactic halos. Intriguingly, for light-mass WIMPs with a thermal annihilation cross section, the level of expected radio emission matches the ARCADE observations.
Cosmological radio emission induced by WIMP Dark Matter
2011
We present a detailed analysis of the radio synchrotron emission induced by WIMP dark matter annihilations and decays in extragalactic halos. We compute intensity, angular correlation, and source counts and discuss the impact on the expected signals of dark matter clustering, as well as of other astrophysical uncertainties as magnetic fields and spatial diffusion. Bounds on dark matter microscopic properties are then derived, and, depending on the specific set of assumptions, they are competitive with constraints from other indirect dark matter searches. At GHz frequencies, dark matter sources can become a significant fraction of the total number of sources with brightness below the microJa…
Connecting neutrino physics with dark matter
2014
The origin of neutrino masses and the nature of dark matter are two of the most pressing open questions of the modern astro-particle physics. We consider here the possibility that these two problems are related, and review some theoretical scenarios which offer common solutions. A simple possibility is that the dark matter particle emerges in minimal realizations of the see-saw mechanism, like in the majoron and sterile neutrino scenarios. We present the theoretical motivation for both models and discuss their phenomenology, confronting the predictions of these scenarios with cosmological and astrophysical observations. Finally, we discuss the possibility that the stability of dark matter o…
Reliability of Monte Carlo event generators for gamma-ray dark matter searches
2013
We study the differences in the gamma-ray spectra simulated by four Monte Carlo event generator packages developed in particle physics. Two different versions of PYTHIA and two of HERWIG are analyzed, namely PYTHIA 6.418 and HERWIG 6.5.10 in Fortran and PYTHIA 8.165 and HERWIG 2.6.1 in C++. For all the studied channels, the intrinsic differences between them are shown to be significative and may play an important role in misunderstanding dark matter signals.
Interpretation of AMS-02 electrons and positrons data
2014
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, for which we derive a novel determination by using AMS-02 proton and helium data. Primary positron…
Galactic synchrotron emission from WIMPs at radio frequencies
2011
Dark matter annihilations in the Galactic halo inject relativistic electrons and positrons which in turn generate a synchrotron radiation when interacting with the galactic magnetic field. We calculate the synchrotron flux for various dark matter annihilation channels, masses, and astrophysical assumptions in the low-frequency range and compare our results with radio surveys from 22 MHz to 1420 MHz. We find that current observations are able to constrain particle dark matter with "thermal" annihilation cross-sections, i.e. (\sigma v) = 3 x 10^-26 cm^3/s, and masses M_DM < 10 GeV. We discuss the dependence of these bounds on the astrophysical assumptions, namely galactic dark matter distribu…
WIMP dark matter as radiative neutrino mass messenger
2013
The minimal seesaw extension of the Standard SU(3)(c)circle times SU(2)(L)circle times U(1)(Y) Model requires two electroweak singlet fermions in order to accommodate the neutrino oscillation parameters at tree level. Here we consider a next to minimal extension where light neutrino masses are generated radiatively by two electroweak fermions: one singlet and one triplet under SU(2)(L). These should be odd under a parity symmetry and their mixing gives rise to a stable weakly interactive massive particle (WIMP) dark matter candidate. For mass in the GeV-TeV range, it reproduces the correct relic density, and provides an observable signal in nuclear recoil direct detection experiments. The f…
Radio data and synchrotron emission in consistent cosmic ray models
2011
It is well established that phenomenological two-zone diffusion models of the galactic halo can very well reproduce cosmic-ray nuclear data and the observed antiproton flux. Here, we consider lepton propagation in such models and compute the expected galactic population of electrons, as well as the diffuse synchrotron emission that results from their interaction with galactic magnetic fields. We find models in agreement not only with cosmic ray data but also with radio surveys at essentially all frequencies. Requiring such a globally consistent description strongly disfavors very large ($L\gtrsim 15$ kpc) and, even stronger, small ($L\lesssim 1$ kpc) effective diffusive halo sizes. This has…
Probing interactions within the dark matter sector via extra radiation contributions
2013
The nature of dark matter is one of the most thrilling riddles for both cosmology and particle physics nowadays. While in the typical models the dark sector is composed only by weakly interacting massive particles, an arguably more natural scenario would include a whole set of gauge interactions which are invisible for the standard model but that are in contact with the dark matter. We present a method to constrain the number of massless gauge bosons and other relativistic particles that might be present in the dark sector using current and future cosmic microwave background data, and provide upper bounds on the size of the dark sector. We use the fact that the dark matter abundance depends…
Planck-scale effects on WIMP dark matter
2014
There exists a widely known conjecture that gravitational effects violate global symmetries. We study the effect of global-symmetry violating higher-dimension operators induced by Planck-scale physics on the properties of WIMP dark matter. Using an effective description, we show that the lifetime of the WIMP dark matter candidate can satisfy cosmological bounds under reasonable assumptions regarding the strength of the dimension-five operators. On the other hand, the indirect WIMP dark matter detection signal is significantly enhanced due to new decay channels.