Dark matter self-interactions and light force carriers
- Creators
- Buckley, Matthew R.
- Fox, Patrick J.
Abstract
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.
Additional Information
© 2010 The American Physical Society. Received 11 February 2010; published 19 April 2010. We thank M. Kaplinghat, and H.-B. Yu for informative discussions. We would like to thank N. Weiner for helpful discussions and comments on a draft of this work, and the Galileo Galilei Institute for Theoretical Physics for hospitality while part of this work was completed. M. R. B. would like to thank S. Carroll, D. Hooper, and M. Wise for useful discussion and advice. He also thanks the Aspen Center for Physics for providing a stimulating environment for collaboration and writing. P. J. F. would like to thank E. Poppitz for collaboration during the early stages of this work. M. R. B. is supported by the Department of Energy, under Grant No. DE-FG03-92-ER40701. Fermilab is operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the United States Department of Energy. Note Added.—During the completion of this work we became aware of a paper that addresses similar issues [38]. Though they consider a different astrophysical system, we reach similar conclusions.Attached Files
Published - Buckley2010p10050Phys_Rev_D.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 18405
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20100524-130900115
- Department of Energy
- DE-FG03-92-ER40701
- Fermi Research Alliance
- DE-AC02-07CH11359
- Created
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2010-05-25Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Caltech Theory