Indirect searches for neutralino dark matter

There is mounting evidence for dark matter in the Universe and one of the favourite dark matter candidates is the neutralino, which naturally appears as the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) in many supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. The neutralino has the desired properties to be a good dark matter candidate and we will here review the different indirect searches for neutralino dark matter and discuss the implications on these from recent direct searches.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Identification of Dark Matter (idm2002), York, England, 2-6 September, 200

Spectral Gamma-ray Signatures of Cosmological Dark Matter Annihilation

We propose a new signature for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter, a spectral feature in the diffuse extragalactic gamma-ray radiation. This feature, a sudden drop of the gamma-ray intensity at an energy corresponding to the WIMP mass, comes from the asymmetric distortion of the line due to WIMP annihilation into two gamma-rays caused by the cosmological redshift. Unlike other proposed searches for a line signal, this method is not very sensitive to the exact dark matter density distribution in halos and subhalos. The only requirement is that the mass distribution of substructure on small scales follows approximately the Press-Schechter law, and that smaller halos are on the average denser than large halos, which is a generic outcome of N-body simulations of Cold Dark Matter, and which has observational support. The upcoming Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will be eminently suited to search for these spectral features. For numerical examples, we use rates computed for supersymmetric particle dark matter, where a detectable signal is possible.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Matches the published version. Conclusions unchange

SUSY Tools for Dark Matter and at the Colliders

With present and upcoming SUSY searches both directly, indirectly and at accelerators, the need for accurate calculations is large. We will here go through some of the tools available both from a dark matter point of view and at accelerators. For natural reasons, we will focus on public tools, even though there are some rather sophisticated private tools as well.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, Chapter 16 of the book "Particle Dark Matter: Observations, Models and Searches" edited by G. Bertone, Cambridge University Press, http://cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=978052176368

The positron excess and supersymmetric dark matter

Using a new instrument, the HEAT collaboration has confirmed the excess of cosmic ray positrons that they first detected in 1994. We explore the possibility that this excess is due to the annihilation of neutralino dark matter in the galactic halo. We confirm that neutralino annihilation can produce enough positrons to make up the measured excess only if there is an additional enhancement to the signal. We quantify the `boost factor' that is required in the signal for various models in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model parameter space, and find that a boost factor >30 provides good fits to the HEAT data. Such an enhancement in the signal could arise if we live in a clumpy halo.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Identification of Dark Matter (idm2002), York, England, 2-6 September, 200