Lines and boxes: Unmasking Dynamical Dark Matter through correlations in the MeV gamma-ray spectrum

Kimberly K. Boddy, Keith R. Dienes, Doojin Kim, Jason Kumar, Jong-Chul Park, and Brooks Thomas
Phys. Rev. D 94, 095027 – Published 30 November 2016

Abstract

Identifying signatures of dark matter at indirect-detection experiments is generally more challenging for scenarios involving nonminimal dark sectors such as Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) than for scenarios involving a single dark particle. This additional difficulty arises because the partitioning of the total dark-matter abundance across an ensemble of different constituent particles with different masses tends to “smear” the injection spectra of photons and other cosmic-ray particles that are produced via dark-matter annihilation or decay. As a result, the imprints of the dark sector on these cosmic-ray flux spectra typically take the form of continuum features rather than sharp peaks or lines. In this paper, however, we identify an unambiguous signature of nonminimal dark sectors such as DDM which can overcome these issues and potentially be observed at gamma-ray telescopes operating in the MeV range. We discuss the specific situations in which this signature can arise, and demonstrate that this signature can be exploited in order to significantly enhance our ability to resolve the unique spectral features of DDM and other nonminimal dark sectors at future gamma-ray facilities.

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  • Received 23 July 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.94.095027

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

Kimberly K. Boddy1,*, Keith R. Dienes2,3,†, Doojin Kim4,‡, Jason Kumar1,§, Jong-Chul Park5,∥, and Brooks Thomas6,7,¶

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 USA
  • 4Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611 USA
  • 5Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134 Korea
  • 6Department of Physics, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903 USA
  • 7Department of Physics, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania 18042 USA

  • *kboddy@hawaii.edu
  • dienes@email.arizona.edu
  • immworry@ufl.edu
  • §jkumar@hawaii.edu
  • jcpark@cnu.ac.kr
  • thomasbd@lafayette.edu

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Issue

Vol. 94, Iss. 9 — 1 November 2016

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