Cosmic-ray signatures of dark matter decay

por Alejandro Ibarra (Technische Universität München)

jueves 25 jun. 2009 12:00 → 13:00 Europe/Madrid

Sala Seminarios IFIC (Edf. Institutos de Investigación)

Present evidence for dark matter in our Galaxy and in the Universe at large does not exclude the possibility that the dark matter particles could be unstable. If this is the case, their decays into positrons, antiprotons or gamma rays might occur at rate sufficiently large to allow indirect dark matter detection through an anomalous contribution to the high-energy cosmic-ray fluxes. In this talk we discuss the implications for the scenario of decaying dark matter of the excess in the positron fraction reported by the PAMELA collaboration and the excess in the total electron plus positron flux reported by the Fermi collaboration. We also discuss the constraints on the properties of the dark matter particles which stem from the non-observation of an exotic contribution in the antiproton flux. Finally, we estimate the contributions to the diffuse gamma-ray background from dark matter decay, which will be tested in the near future by the Fermi Large Area Telescope.