Trinity Rosebud Stenhouse

arXiv2026

Photon--Dark Matter Elastic Scattering: An Effective-Operator Scan and First Operator-Resolved Sensitivity Estimates from the Galactic Halo

Elastic photon--dark matter scattering attenuates gamma-ray spectra along a line of sight, probing the same operators as dark matter annihilation to photons but at a rate linear, rather than quadratic, in dark matter density. We consider Standard Model gauge-invariant effective operators of mass-dimension 5 to 7, suppressed by a cutoff scale $Λ$, coupling scalar, Majorana or Dirac dark matter to the photon. The leading operators with non-vanishing real-photon amplitudes enter at dimension-5 for Dirac dark matter and dimension-7 for Majorana dark matter. In the electroweak-doublet dipole portal, the inelastic splitting invoked to evade direct detection also closes the CMB annihilation bound, leaving attenuation the only one of the three photon-sector probes that survives. Applying this to a pixel-level reanalysis of 17 years of \textit{Fermi}--LAT Pass~8 data toward the Galactic centre, we derive the first operator-resolved sensitivity estimates for photon--dark matter scattering from the Galactic halo: $Λ\simeq 0.32~\mathrm{GeV}$ for the dimension-5 Dirac dipoles, $0.21~\mathrm{GeV}$ for the dimension-6 scalar Rayleigh operator and $0.79$--$1.06~\mathrm{GeV}$ for the dimension-7 Rayleigh family. The reach is weak: it lies below the EFT-validity threshold across the cold dark matter mass range, and is superseded on the dipole plane by CMB and direct-detection constraints. The framework is calibrated against pseudo-experiments, and recomputes the sensitivity for any instrument that provides a per-bin spectrum with uncertainties and a line-of-sight column density.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

The 20 GeV Galactic Halo Excess: Pixel-Level Confirmation and Consistency with Sub-TeV WIMP Annihilation

A recent analysis of 15 years of Fermi-LAT data reported a spherically symmetric, halo-like component of the Galactic diffuse emission that peaks near 20GeV. We independently reproduce this cell-aggregated analysis, then extend it to a pixel-level likelihood on the native $0.125^\circ$ maps, adding energy-dependent point-spread-function forward folding and masking bright sources. Both methods replicate the 20GeV halo spectrum, with the pixel-level normalisation ${\sim}20\%$ above the cellwise fit across NFW emissivity scalings $ρ^p$, $p \in 1,2,2.5$. This 20GeV halo is a high-latitude feature, distinct from the inner-Galaxy excess, and consistent with sub-TeV dark matter (WIMP) annihilation. It is centrally concentrated, strongly disfavouring extragalactic emission. Fitting prompt $s$-wave annihilation spectra, best-fit masses are $m_χ\simeq 0.55$TeV ($W^+W^-$) and $0.72$TeV ($b\bar{b}$) with $\langleσv\rangle \simeq 1\times10^{-24}~\mathrm{cm^3\,s^{-1}}$, in $\sim\!4$-$5\times$ tension with dwarf spheroidal galaxy limits. However, accounting for foreground modelling and $J$-factor systematic uncertainties widens the tension window to $R\simeq1.6$-$9.3$, leaving the $s$-wave interpretation viable. To close the tension, we consider alternative particle dark matter models. $p$-wave annihilation misses relic abundance constraints by $\sim\!7$ orders of magnitude. A decay interpretation evades dwarf limits but is disfavoured by the isotropic gamma-ray background. The only viable velocity structure consistent with dwarf limits, present-day halo rates, and relic density is low-velocity-enhanced annihilation (resonant Sommerfeld or Breit-Wigner). This supplies the required $\approx\!45\times$ boost from a thermal relic. Fully resolving the dwarf tension requires a fine-tuned resonance peaking at the halo velocity and falling for colder systems.

astro-ph.HE↗