46 research outputs found
Unparticle effects on cosmic ray photon and
We study the effects of unparticle physics on the cosmic ray photon and
, including on the pair production (PP) and elastic scattering (ES) of
cosmic ray photon off various background radiations, and on the inverse Compton
scattering of cosmic ray with cosmic radiations. We compute the
spin-averaged amplitudes squared of three processes and find that the advent of
unparticle will never significantly change the interactions of cosmic ray
photon and with various background radiations, although the available
papers show that ES which occurs in the tree-level through unparticle exchanges
will easily surpass PP in the approximate parameter regions.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Small steps towards Grand Unification and the electron/positron excesses in cosmic-ray experiments
We consider a small extension of the standard model by adding two Majorana
fermions; those are adjoint representations of the SU(2)_L and SU(3)_c gauge
groups of the standard model. In this extension, the gauge coupling unification
at an energy scale higher than 10^{15} GeV is realized when the masses of the
triplet and the octet fermions are smaller than 10^4 GeV and 10^{12} GeV,
respectively. We also show that an appropriate symmetry ensures a long lifetime
of the neutral component of the triplet fermion whose thermal relic density
naturally explains the observed dark matter density. The electron/positron
excesses observed in recent cosmic-ray experiments can be also explained by the
decay of the triplet fermion.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
TeV Scale Singlet Dark Matter
It is well known that stable weak scale particles are viable dark matter
candidates since the annihilation cross section is naturally about the right
magnitude to leave the correct thermal residual abundance. Many dark matter
searches have focused on relatively light dark matter consistent with weak
couplings to the Standard Model. However, in a strongly coupled theory, or even
if the coupling is just a few times bigger than the Standard Model couplings,
dark matter can have TeV-scale mass with the correct thermal relic abundance.
Here we consider neutral TeV-mass scalar dark matter, its necessary
interactions, and potential signals. We consider signals both with and without
higher-dimension operators generated by strong coupling at the TeV scale, as
might happen for example in an RS scenario. We find some potential for
detection in high energy photons that depends on the dark matter distribution.
Detection in positrons at lower energies, such as those PAMELA probes, would be
difficult though a higher energy positron signal could in principle be
detectable over background. However, a light dark matter particle with
higher-dimensional interactions consistent with a TeV cutoff can in principle
match PAMELA data.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures. Minor changes, references adde
Sommerfeld Enhancement of DM Annihilation: Resonance Structure, Freeze-Out and CMB Spectral Bound
In the last few years there has been some interest in WIMP Dark Matter models
featuring a velocity dependent cross section through the Sommerfeld enhancement
mechanism, which is a nonrelativistic effect due to massive bosons in the dark
sector. In the first part of this article, we find analytic expressions for the
boost factor for three different model potentials, the Coulomb potential, the
spherical well and the spherical cone well and compare with the numerical
solution of the Yukawa potential. We find that the resonance pattern of all the
potentials can be cast into the same universal form. In the second part of the
article we perform a detailed computation of the Dark Matter relic density for
models having Sommerfeld enhancement by solving the Boltzmann equation
numerically. We calculate the expected distortions of the CMB blackbody
spectrum from WIMP annihilations and compare these to the bounds set by FIRAS.
We conclude that only a small part of the parameter space can be ruled out by
the FIRAS observations.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, version accepted by JCA
Dirac gaugino as leptophilic dark matter
We investigate the leptophilic properties of Dirac gauginos in an
R--symmetric N=2 supersymmetric model with extended gauge and Higgs sectors.
The annihilation of Dirac gauginos to leptons requires no chirality flip in the
final states so that it is not suppressed as in the Majorana case. This implies
that it can be sizable enough to explain the positron excess observed by the
PAMELA experiment with moderate or no boost factors. When squark masses are
heavy, the annihilation of Dirac gauginos to hadrons is controlled by their
Higgsino fraction and is driven by the and final states.
Moreover, at variance with the Majorana case, Dirac gauginos with a
non-vanishing higgsino fraction can also have a vector coupling with the
gauge boson leading to a sizable spin--independent scattering cross section off
nuclei. Saturating the current antiproton limit, we show that Dirac gauginos
can leave a signal in direct detection experiments at the level of the
sensitivity of dark matter searches at present and in the near future.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, typos corrected, final version published on
JCA
Cosmic Ray Spectra in Nambu-Goldstone Dark Matter Models
We discuss the cosmic ray spectra in annihilating/decaying Nambu-Goldstone
dark matter models. The recent observed positron/electron excesses at PAMELA
and Fermi experiments are well fitted by the dark matter with a mass of 3TeV
for the annihilating model, while with a mass of 6 TeV for the decaying model.
We also show that the Nambu-Goldstone dark matter models predict a distinctive
gamma-ray spectrum in a certain parameter space.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
Cosmic rays from Leptonic Dark Matter
If dark matter possesses a lepton number, it is natural to expect the
dark-matter annihilation and/or decay mainly produces the standard model
leptons, while negligible amount of the antiproton is produced. To illustrate
such a simple idea, we consider a scenario that a right-handed sneutrino dark
matter decays into the standard model particles through tiny R-parity violating
interactions. Interestingly enough, charged leptons as well as neutrinos are
directly produced, and they can lead to a sharp peak in the predicted positron
fraction. Moreover, the decay of the right-handed sneutrino also generates
diffuse continuum gamma rays which may account for the excess observed by
EGRET, while the primary antiproton flux can be suppressed. Those predictions
on the cosmic-ray fluxes of the positrons, gamma rays and antiprotons will be
tested by the PAMELA and FGST observatories.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, updated plots including PAMELA dat
Fundamental physics in space with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
Successfully launched in June 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope,
formerly named GLAST, has been observing the high-energy gamma-ray sky with
unprecedented sensitivity for more than two years, opening a new window on a
wide variety of exotic astrophysical objects. This paper is a short overview of
the main science highlights, aimed at non-specialists, with emphasis on those
which are more directly connected with the study of fundamental
physics---particularly the search for signals of new physics in the diffuse
gamma-ray emission and in the cosmic radiation and the study of Gamma-Ray Burst
as laboratories for testing possible violations of the Lorentz invariance.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, submitted for the proceedings of DICE 201
Indirect Detection of Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter from Latticized Universal Dimensions
We consider Kaluza-Klein dark matter from latticized universal dimensions. We
motivate and investigate two different lattice models, where the models differ
in the choice of boundary conditions. The models reproduce relevant features of
the continuum model for Kaluza-Klein dark matter. For the model with simple
boundary conditions, this is the case even for a model with only a few lattice
sites. We study the effects of the latticization on the differential flux of
positrons from Kaluza-Klein dark matter annihilation in the galactic halo. We
find that for different choices of the compactification radius, the
differential positron flux rapidly converges to the continuum model results as
a function of the number of lattice sites. In addition, we consider the
prospects for upcoming space-based experiments such as PAMELA and AMS-02 to
probe the latticization effect.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, LaTeX. Final version published in JCA
PAMELA, DAMA, INTEGRAL and Signatures of Metastable Excited WIMPs
Models of dark matter with ~ GeV scale force mediators provide attractive
explanations of many high energy anomalies, including PAMELA, ATIC, and the
WMAP haze. At the same time, by exploiting the ~ MeV scale excited states that
are automatically present in such theories, these models naturally explain the
DAMA/LIBRA and INTEGRAL signals through the inelastic dark matter (iDM) and
exciting dark matter (XDM) scenarios, respectively. Interestingly, with only
weak kinetic mixing to hypercharge to mediate decays, the lifetime of excited
states with delta < 2 m_e is longer than the age of the universe. The
fractional relic abundance of these excited states depends on the temperature
of kinetic decoupling, but can be appreciable. There could easily be other
mechanisms for rapid decay, but the consequences of such long-lived states are
intriguing. We find that CDMS constrains the fractional relic population of
~100 keV states to be <~ 10^-2, for a 1 TeV WIMP with sigma_n = 10^-40 cm^2.
Upcoming searches at CDMS, as well as xenon, silicon, and argon targets, can
push this limit significantly lower. We also consider the possibility that the
DAMA excitation occurs from a metastable state into the XDM state, which decays
via e+e- emission, which allows lighter states to explain the INTEGRAL signal
due to the small kinetic energies required. Such models yield dramatic signals
from down-scattering, with spectra peaking at high energies, sometimes as high
as ~1 MeV, well outside the usual search windows. Such signals would be visible
at future Ar and Si experiments, and may be visible at Ge and Xe experiments.
We also consider other XDM models involving ~ 500 keV metastable states, and
find they can allow lighter WIMPs to explain INTEGRAL as well.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure