arXiv subjects

Tracy R. Slatyer

Publications and source records attributed to Tracy R. Slatyer.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Multi-Step Cascade Annihilations of Dark Matter and the Galactic Center Excess

If dark matter is embedded in a non-trivial dark sector, it may annihilate and decay to lighter dark-sector states which subsequently decay to the Standard Model. Such scenarios - with annihilation followed by cascading dark-sector decays - can explain the apparent excess GeV gamma-rays identified in the central Milky Way, while evading bounds from dark matter direct detection experiments. Each 'step' in the cascade will modify the observable signatures of dark matter annihilation and decay, shifting the resulting photons and other final state particles to lower energies and broadening their spectra. We explore, in a model-independent way, the effect of multi-step dark-sector cascades on the preferred regions of parameter space to explain the GeV excess. We find that the broadening effects of multi-step cascades can admit final states dominated by particles that would usually produce too sharply peaked photon spectra; in general, if the cascades are hierarchical (each particle decays to substantially lighter particles), the preferred mass range for the dark matter is in all cases 20-150 GeV. Decay chains that have nearly-degenerate steps, where the products are close to half the mass of the progenitor, can admit much higher DM masses. We map out the region of mass/cross-section parameter space where cascades (degenerate, hierarchical or a combination) can fit the signal, for a range of final states. In the current work, we study multi-step cascades in the context of explaining the GeV excess, but many aspects of our results are general and can be extended to other applications.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

The Characterization of the Gamma-Ray Signal from the Central Milky Way: A Compelling Case for Annihilating Dark Matter

Past studies have identified a spatially extended excess of $\sim$1-3 GeV gamma rays from the region surrounding the Galactic Center, consistent with the emission expected from annihilating dark matter. We revisit and scrutinize this signal with the intention of further constraining its characteristics and origin. By applying cuts to the \textit{Fermi} event parameter CTBCORE, we suppress the tails of the point spread function and generate high resolution gamma-ray maps, enabling us to more easily separate the various gamma-ray components. Within these maps, we find the GeV excess to be robust and highly statistically significant, with a spectrum, angular distribution, and overall normalization that is in good agreement with that predicted by simple annihilating dark matter models. For example, the signal is very well fit by a 36-51 GeV dark matter particle annihilating to $b\bar{b}$ with an annihilation cross section of $σv = (1-3)\times 10^{-26}$ cm$^3$/s (normalized to a local dark matter density of 0.4 GeV/cm$^3$). Furthermore, we confirm that the angular distribution of the excess is approximately spherically symmetric and centered around the dynamical center of the Milky Way (within $\sim$$0.05^{\circ}$ of Sgr A$^*$), showing no sign of elongation along the Galactic Plane. The signal is observed to extend to at least $\simeq10^{\circ}$ from the Galactic Center, disfavoring the possibility that this emission originates from millisecond pulsars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Current Dark Matter Annihilation Constraints from CMB and Low-Redshift Data

Updated constraints on dark matter cross section and mass are presented combining CMB power spectrum measurements from Planck, WMAP9, ACT, and SPT as well as several low-redshift datasets (BAO, HST, supernovae). For the CMB datasets, we combine WMAP9 temperature and polarization data for l <= 431 with Planck temperature data for 432 < l < 2500, ACT and SPT data for l > 2500, and Planck CMB four-point lensing measurements. We allow for redshift-dependent energy deposition from dark matter annihilation by using a `universal' energy absorption curve. We also include an updated treatment of the excitation, heating, and ionization energy fractions, and provide updated deposition efficiency factors (f_eff) for 41 different dark matter models. Assuming perfect energy deposition (f_eff = 1) and a thermal cross section, dark matter masses below 26 GeV are excluded at the 2-sigma level. Assuming a more generic efficiency of f_eff = 0.2, thermal dark matter masses below 5 GeV are disfavored at the 2-sigma level. These limits are a factor of ~2 improvement over those from WMAP9 data alone. These current constraints probe, but do not exclude, dark matter as an explanation for reported anomalous indirect detection observations from AMS-02/PAMELA and the Fermi Gamma-ray Inner Galaxy data. They also probe relevant models that would explain anomalous direct detection events from CDMS, CRESST, CoGeNT, and DAMA, as originating from a generic thermal WIMP. Projected constraints from the full Planck release should improve the current limits by another factor of ~2, but will not definitely probe these signals. The proposed CMB Stage IV experiment will more decisively explore the relevant regions and improve upon the Planck constraints by another factor of ~2.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Self-Scattering for Dark Matter with an Excited State

Self-interacting dark matter scenarios have recently attracted much attention, as a possible means to alleviate the tension between N-body simulations and observations of the dark matter distribution on galactic and sub-galactic scales. The presence of internal structure for the dark matter --- for example, a nearly-degenerate state in the spectrum that could decay, or be collisionally excited or de-excited --- has also been proposed as a possible means to address these discrepancies. Such internal structure can be a source of interesting signatures in direct and indirect dark matter searches, for example providing a novel explanation for the 3.5 keV line recently observed in galaxies and galaxy clusters. We analyze a simple model of dark matter self-scattering including a nearly-degenerate excited state, and develop an accurate analytic approximation for the elastic and inelastic s-wave cross sections, which is valid outside the perturbative regime provided the particle velocity is sufficiently low (this condition is also required for the s-wave to dominate over higher partial waves). We anticipate our results will be useful in incorporating inelastic self-scattering into N-body simulations, in order to study the quantitative impact of nearly-degenerate states in the dark matter spectrum on galactic structure and dynamics, and in computing the indirect signatures of multi-state dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation from Effective Field Theory

We formulate an effective field theory description for SU(2)$_L$ triplet fermionic dark matter by combining nonrelativistic dark matter with gauge bosons in the soft-collinear effective theory. For a given dark matter mass, the annihilation cross section to line photons is obtained with 5% precision by simultaneously including Sommerfeld enhancement and the resummation of electroweak Sudakov logarithms at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic order. Using these results, we present more accurate and precise predictions for the gamma-ray line signal from annihilation, updating both existing constraints and the reach of future experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Wino Dark Matter Under Siege

A fermion triplet of SU(2)_L - a wino - is a well-motivated dark matter candidate. This work shows that present-day wino annihilations are constrained by indirect detection experiments, with the strongest limits coming from H.E.S.S. and Fermi. The bounds on wino dark matter are presented as a function of mass for two scenarios: thermal (winos constitute a subdominant component of the dark matter for masses less than 3.1 TeV) and non-thermal (winos comprise all the dark matter). Assuming the NFW halo model, the H.E.S.S. search for gamma-ray lines excludes the 3.1 TeV thermal wino; the combined H.E.S.S. and Fermi results completely exclude the non-thermal scenario. Uncertainties in the exclusions are explored. Indirect detection may provide the only probe for models of anomaly plus gravity mediation where the wino is the lightest superpartner and scalars reside at the 100 TeV scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Systematic Uncertainties In Constraining Dark Matter Annihilation From The Cosmic Microwave Background

Anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have proven to be a very powerful tool to constrain dark matter annihilation at the epoch of recombination. However, CMB constraints are currently derived using a number of reasonable but yet un-tested assumptions that could potentially lead to a misestimation of the true bounds. In this paper we examine the potential impact of these systematic effects. In particular, we separately study the propagation of the secondary particles produced by annihilation in two energy regimes; first following the shower from the initial particle energy to the keV scale, and then tracking the resulting secondary particles from this scale to the absorption of their energy as heat, ionization, or excitation of the medium. We improve both the high and low energy parts of the calculation, in particular finding that our more accurate treatment of losses to sub-10.2 eV photons produced by scattering of high-energy electrons weakens the constraints on particular DM annihilation models by up to a factor of two. On the other hand, we find that the uncertainties we examine for the low energy propagation do not significantly affect the results for current and upcoming CMB data. We include the evaluation of the precise amount of excitation energy, in the form of Lyman-alpha photons, produced by the propagation of the shower, and examine the effects of varying the Helium fraction and Helium ionization fraction. In the recent literature, simple approximations for the fraction of energy absorbed in different channels have often been used to derive CMB constraints: we assess the impact of using accurate versus approximate energy fractions. Finally we check that the choice of recombination code (between RECFAST v1.5 and COSMOREC), to calculate the evolution of the free electron fraction in the presence of dark matter annihilation, introduces negligible differences.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Two Emission Mechanisms in the Fermi Bubbles: A Possible Signal of Annihilating Dark Matter

We study the variation of the spectrum of the Fermi Bubbles with Galactic latitude. Far from the Galactic plane (|b| > 30 degrees), the observed gamma-ray emission is nearly invariant with latitude, and is consistent with arising from inverse Compton scattering of the interstellar radiation field by cosmic-ray electrons with an approximately power-law spectrum. The same electrons in the presence of microgauss-scale magnetic fields can also generate the the observed microwave "haze". At lower latitudes (b < 20 degrees), in contrast, the spectrum of the emission correlated with the Bubbles possesses a pronounced spectral feature peaking at 1-4 GeV (in E^2 dN/dE) which cannot be generated by any realistic spectrum of electrons. Instead, we conclude that a second (non-inverse-Compton) emission mechanism must be responsible for the bulk of the low-energy, low-latitude emission. This second component is spectrally similar to the excess GeV emission previously reported from the Galactic Center (GC), and also appears spatially consistent with a luminosity per volume falling approximately as r^-2.4, where r is the distance from the GC. We argue that the spectral feature visible in the low-latitude Bubbles is the extended counterpart of the GC excess, now detected out to at least 2-3 kpc from the GC. The spectrum and angular distribution of the signal is consistent with that predicted from ~10 GeV dark matter particles annihilating to leptons, or from ~50 GeV dark matter particles annihilating to quarks, following a distribution similar to the canonical Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile. We also consider millisecond pulsars as a possible astrophysical explanation for the signal, as observed millisecond pulsars possess a spectral cutoff at approximately the required energy. Any such scenario would require a large population of unresolved millisecond pulsars extending at least 2-3 kpc from the GC.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

Energy Injection And Absorption In The Cosmic Dark Ages

Dark matter annihilation or de-excitation, decay of metastable species, or other new physics may inject energetic electrons and photons into the photon-baryon fluid during and after recombination. As such particles cool, they partition their energy into a large number of efficiently ionizing electrons and photons, which in turn modify the ionization history. Recent work has provided a simple method for constraining arbitrary energy deposition histories using the cosmic microwave background (CMB); in this note, we present results describing the energy deposition histories for photons and electrons as a function of initial energy and injection redshift. With these results, the CMB bounds on any process injecting some arbitrary spectrum of electrons, positrons and/or photons with arbitrary redshift dependence can be immediately computed.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Illuminating the 130 GeV Gamma Line with Continuum Photons

There is evidence for a 130 GeV gamma-ray line at the Galactic Center in the Fermi Large Area Telescope data. Dark matter candidates that explain this feature should also annihilate to Standard Model particles, resulting in a continuous spectrum of photons. To study this continuum, we analyze the Fermi data down to 5 GeV, restricted to the inner 3 degrees of the Galaxy. We place a strong bound on the ratio of continuum photons to monochromatic line photons that is independent of uncertainties in the dark matter density profile. The derived constraints exclude neutralino dark matter as an explanation for the line.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Sommerfeld-Enhanced Annihilation in Dark Matter Substructure: Consequences for Constraints on Cosmic-Ray Excesses

In models of dark matter (DM) with Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilation, where the annihilation rate scales as the inverse velocity, N-body simulations of DM structure formation suggest that the local annihilation signal may be dominated by small, dense, cold subhalos. This contrasts with the usual assumption of a signal originating from the smooth DM halo, with much higher velocity dispersion. Accounting for local substructure modifies the parameter space for which Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilating DM can explain the PAMELA and Fermi excesses. Limits from the inner galaxy and the cosmic microwave background are weakened, without introducing new tension with substructure-dependent limits, such as from dwarf galaxies or isotropic gamma-ray studies. With substructure, previously excluded parameter regions with mediators of mass ~1-200 MeV are now easily allowed. For O(MeV) mediators, subhalos in a specific range of host halo masses may be evaporated, further suppressing diffuse signals without affecting substructure in the Milky Way.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

A Collective Breaking of R-Parity

Supersymmetric theories with an R-parity generally yield a striking missing energy signature, with cascade decays concluding in a neutralino that escapes the detector. In theories where R-parity is broken the missing energy is replaced with additional jets or leptons, often making traditional search strategies ineffective. Such R-parity violation is very constrained, however, by resulting B and L violating signals, requiring couplings so small that LSPs will decay outside the detector in all but a few scenarios. In theories with additional matter fields, R-parity can be broken collectively, such that R-parity is not broken by any single coupling, but only by an ensemble of couplings. Cascade decays can proceed normally, with each step only sensitive to one or two couplings at a time, but B and L violation requires the full set, yielding a highly suppressed constraint. s-channel production of new scalar states, typically small for standard RPV, can be large when RPV is broken collectively. While missing energy is absent, making these models difficult to discover by traditional SUSY searches, they produce complicated many object resonances (MORes), with many different possible numbers of jets and leptons. We outline a simple model and discuss its discoverability at the LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

The Isotropic Radio Background and Annihilating Dark Matter

Observations by ARCADE-2 and other telescopes sensitive to low frequency radiation have revealed the presence of an isotropic radio background with a hard spectral index. The intensity of this observed background is found to exceed the flux predicted from astrophysical sources by a factor of approximately 5-6. In this article, we consider the possibility that annihilating dark matter particles provide the primary contribution to the observed isotropic radio background through the emission of synchrotron radiation from electron and positron annihilation products. For reasonable estimates of the magnetic fields present in clusters and galaxies, we find that dark matter could potentially account for the observed radio excess, but only if it annihilates mostly to electrons and/or muons, and only if it possesses a mass in the range of approximately 5-50 GeV. For such models, the annihilation cross section required to normalize the synchrotron signal to the observed excess is sigma v ~ (0.4-30) x 10^-26 cm^3/s, similar to the value predicted for a simple thermal relic (sigma v ~ 3 x 10^-26 cm^3/s). We find that in any scenario in which dark matter annihilations are responsible for the observed excess radio emission, a significant fraction of the isotropic gamma ray background observed by Fermi must result from dark matter as well.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Searching for Dark Matter in the CMB: A Compact Parameterization of Energy Injection from New Physics

High-precision measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation have been previously employed to set robust constraints on dark matter annihilation during recombination. In this work we improve and generalize these constraints to apply to energy deposition during the recombination era with arbitrary redshift dependence. Our approach also provides more rigorous and model-independent bounds on dark matter annihilation and decay scenarios. We employ principal component analysis to identify a basis of weighting functions for the energy deposition. The coefficients of these weighting functions parameterize any energy deposition model and can be constrained directly by experiment. For generic energy deposition histories that are currently allowed by WMAP7 data, up to 3 principal component coefficients are measurable by Planck and up to 5 coefficients are measurable by an ideal cosmic variance limited experiment. For WIMP dark matter, our analysis demonstrates that the effect on the CMB is described well by a single (normalization) parameter and a "universal" redshift dependence for the energy deposition history. We give WMAP 7 constraints on both generic energy deposition histories and the universal WIMP case.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

The cosmic X-ray and gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation

(Abridged) The extragalactic background light (EBL) observed at multiple wavelengths is a promising tool to probe the nature of dark matter since it might contain a significant contribution from gamma-rays produced promptly by dark matter annihilation. Additionally, the electrons and positrons produced in the annihilation give energy to the CMB photons to populate the EBL with X-rays and gamma-rays. We here create full-sky maps of the radiation from both of these contributions using the high-resolution Millennium-II simulation. We use upper limits on the contributions of unknown sources to the EBL to constrain the intrinsic properties of dark matter using a model-independent approach that can be employed as a template to test different particle physics models (including those with a Sommerfeld enhancement). These upper limits are based on observations spanning eight orders of magnitude in energy (from soft X-rays measured by CHANDRA to gamma-rays measured by Fermi), and on expectations for the contributions from blazars and star forming galaxies. To exemplify this approach, we analyze a set of benchmark Sommerfeld-enhanced models that give the correct dark matter abundance, satisfy CMB constraints, and fit the cosmic ray spectra measured by PAMELA and Fermi without any contribution from local subhalos. We find that these models are in conflict with the EBL constraints unless the contribution of unresolved subhalos is small and the annihilation signal dominates the EBL. We conclude that provided the collisionless cold dark matter paradigm is accurate, even for conservative estimates of the contribution from unresolved subhalos and astrophysical backgrounds, the EBL is at least as sensitive a probe of these types of scenarios as the CMB. Our results disfavor an explanation of the positron excess measured by PAMELA based only on dark matter annihilation in the smooth Galactic halo.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Consistent Scenarios for Cosmic-Ray Excesses from Sommerfeld-Enhanced Dark Matter Annihilation

Anomalies in direct and indirect detection have motivated models of dark matter consisting of a multiplet of nearly-degenerate states, coupled by a new GeV-scale interaction. We perform a careful analysis of the thermal freezeout of dark matter annihilation in such a scenario. We compute the range of "boost factors" arising from Sommerfeld enhancement in the local halo for models which produce the correct relic density, and show the effect of including constraints on the saturated enhancement from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We find that boost factors from Sommerfeld enhancement of up to ~800 are possible in the local halo. When the CMB bounds on the saturated enhancement are applied, the maximal boost factor is reduced to ~400 for 1-2 TeV dark matter and sub-GeV force carriers, but remains large enough to explain the observed Fermi and PAMELA electronic signals. We describe regions in the DM mass-boost factor plane where the cosmic ray data is well fit for a range of final states, and show that Sommerfeld enhancement alone is enough to provide the large annihilation cross sections required to fit the data, although for light mediator masses (less than ~200 MeV) there is tension with the CMB constraints in the absence of astrophysical boost factors from substructure. Additionally, we consider the circumstances under which WIMPonium formation is relevant and find for heavy WIMPs (greater than ~2 TeV) and soft-spectrum annihilation channels it can be an important consideration; we find regions with dark matter mass greater than 2.8 TeV that are consistent with the CMB bounds and have ~600-700 present-day boost factors.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: AGN Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?

Data from the Fermi-LAT reveal two large gamma-ray bubbles, extending 50 degrees above and below the Galactic center, with a width of about 40 degrees in longitude. The gamma-ray emission associated with these bubbles has a significantly harder spectrum (dN/dE ~ E^-2) than the IC emission from electrons in the Galactic disk, or the gamma-rays produced by decay of pions from proton-ISM collisions. There is no significant spatial variation in the spectrum or gamma-ray intensity within the bubbles, or between the north and south bubbles. The bubbles are spatially correlated with the hard-spectrum microwave excess known as the WMAP haze; the edges of the bubbles also line up with features in the ROSAT X-ray maps at 1.5-2 keV. We argue that these Galactic gamma-ray bubbles were most likely created by some large episode of energy injection in the Galactic center, such as past accretion events onto the central massive black hole, or a nuclear starburst in the last ~10 Myr. Dark matter annihilation/decay seems unlikely to generate all the features of the bubbles and the associated signals in WMAP and ROSAT; the bubbles must be understood in order to use measurements of the diffuse gamma-ray emission in the inner Galaxy as a probe of dark matter physics. Study of the origin and evolution of the bubbles also has the potential to improve our understanding of recent energetic events in the inner Galaxy and the high-latitude cosmic ray population.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2010

A statistical test of emission from unresolved point sources

We describe a simple test of the spatial uniformity of an ensemble of discrete events. Given an estimate for the point source luminosity function and an instrumental point spread function (PSF), a robust upper bound on the fractional point source contribution to a diffuse signal can be found. We verify with Monte Carlo tests that the statistic has advantages over the two-point correlation function for this purpose, and derive analytic estimates of the statistic's mean and variance as a function of the point source contribution. As a case study, we apply this statistic to recent gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), and demonstrate that at energies above 10 GeV, the contribution of unresolved point sources to the diffuse emission is small in the region relevant for study of the WMAP Haze.

astro-ph.HE↗