Study of positrons from cosmic rays interactions and cold dark matter annihilations in the galactic environment

Abstract

Positron and electron cosmic rays provide a complementary way to study the galactic environment. The actual cosmic rays experiments, for instance PAMELA and HEAT, have presented very exciting results in this field. The observed positron fraction appears larger than the actual theoretical predictions for energies larger than 10 GeV. The indirect evidences of Dark Matter in connection with Beyond the Standard Model theories would suggest the existence of an extra contribution present in the cosmic ray signal. We study and calculate the positron signal produced by the annihilation of a generic Dark Matter candidate. Especially, We analyze typical annihilation signatures and the impact of CR propagation physics on the positron signal. In addition, we study the positron signal related to spallation processes between nuclei cosmic--rays and the interstellar gas. We analyze the effects of uncertainties present in nuclear cross section, nuclei cosmic--ray and CR propagation physics. The propagation of positrons is modeled according to the Two--Zone Propagation Model which has been successfully tested in the study of nuclei cosmic--ray and present an analytical approach to study the cosmic--ray physics.