Interpretation of the Galactic Center excess of gamma rays with heavier dark matter particles

Boehm, Céline; Dolan, Matthew J.; McCabe, Christopher

Abstract

Previous attempts at explaining the gamma-ray excess near the Galactic Center have focused on dark matter annihilating directly into Standard Model particles. This results in a preferred dark matter mass of 30–40 GeV (if the annihilation is into b quarks) or 10 GeV (if it is into leptons). Here we show that the gamma-ray excess is also consistent with heavier dark matter particles; in models of secluded dark matter, dark matter with mass up to 76 GeV provides a good fit to the data. This occurs if the dark matter first annihilates to an on-shell particle that subsequently decays to Standard Model particles through a portal interaction. This is a generic process that works in models with annihilation, semi-annihilation or both. We explicitly demonstrate this in a model of hidden vector dark matter with an SU(2) gauge group in the hidden sector.

Citation

Boehm, C., Dolan, M. J., & McCabe, C. (2014). Interpretation of the Galactic Center excess of gamma rays with heavier dark matter particles. Physical Review D, 90(2), Article 023531. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.90.023531

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 28, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Jul 22, 2014
• Publication Date: Jul 22, 2014
• Deposit Date: Feb 3, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 23, 2016
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Print ISSN: 2470-0010
• Electronic ISSN: 2470-0029
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 90
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 023531
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.90.023531
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1389780