Dark matter self-interactions and light force carriers
- Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510 (United States)
Recent observations from PAMELA, FERMI, and ATIC point to a new source of high energy cosmic rays. If these signals are due to annihilating dark matter (DM), the annihilation cross section in the present day must be substantially larger than that necessary for thermal freeze-out in the early universe. A new force, mediated by a particle of mass O(100 MeV), leading to a velocity-dependent annihilation cross section - a 'Sommerfeld enhancement' - has been proposed as a possible explanation. We point out that such models necessarily increase the DM self-scattering cross section, and use observational bounds on the amount of DM-DM scattering allowed in various astrophysical systems to place constraints on the mass and couplings of the light mediator.
- OSTI ID:
- 21409578
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 81, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.81.083522; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Consistent scenarios for cosmic-ray excesses from Sommerfeld-enhanced dark matter annihilation
Sommerfeld enhancements for thermal relic dark matter
Related Subjects
ANNIHILATION
ASTROPHYSICS
COSMIC RADIATION
COUPLING
CROSS SECTIONS
FREEZING OUT
MASS
MEV RANGE 100-1000
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PARTICLES
SCATTERING
UNIVERSE
VELOCITY
ENERGY RANGE
INTERACTIONS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MATTER
MEV RANGE
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
PHYSICS
RADIATIONS
SEPARATION PROCESSES