Cosmic-ray antiproton constraints on light singlino-like dark matter candidates

Cerdeño, D.G.; Delahaye, T.; Lavalle, J.

Abstract

The CoGeNT experiment, dedicated to direct detection of dark matter, has recently released excess events that could be interpreted as elastic collisions of ∼10 GeV dark matter particles, which might simultaneously explain the still mysterious DAMA/LIBRA modulation signals, while in conflict with results from other experiments such as CDMS, XENON-100 and SIMPLE. It was shown that 5–15 GeV singlino-like dark matter candidates arising in singlet extensions of minimal supersymmetric scenarios can fit these data; annihilation then mostly proceeds into light singlet-dominated Higgs (pseudo-)scalar fields. We develop an effective Lagrangian approach to confront these models with the existing data on cosmic-ray antiprotons, including the latest PAMELA data. Focusing on a parameter space consistent with the CoGeNT region, we show that the predicted antiproton flux is generically in tension with the data whenever the produced (pseudo-)scalars can decay into quarks energetic enough to produce antiprotons, provided the annihilation S-wave is significant at freeze out in the early universe. In this regime, a bound on the singlino annihilation cross section is obtained, 〈σv〉≲10−26 cm3/s, assuming a dynamically constrained halo density profile with a local value of ρ⊙=0.4 GeV/cm3. Finally, we provide indications on how PAMELA or AMS-02 could further constrain or detect those configurations producing antiprotons which are not yet excluded.

Citation

Cerdeño, D., Delahaye, T., & Lavalle, J. (2011). Cosmic-ray antiproton constraints on light singlino-like dark matter candidates. Nuclear Physics B, 854(3), 738-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2011.09.020

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 26, 2011
• Online Publication Date: Oct 4, 2011
• Publication Date: Oct 4, 2011
• Deposit Date: Dec 2, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 4, 2017
• Journal: Nuclear Physics B
• Print ISSN: 0550-3213
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 854
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 738-779
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2011.09.020
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1128