Cosmic rays from leptophilic dark matter decay via kinetic mixing

• Published in: Journal of cosmology and astroparticle physics Vol. 2009; no. 8; p. 017
• Main Authors: Ibarra, Alejandro, Ringwald, Andreas, Tran, David, Weniger, Christoph
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IOP Publishing 01.08.2009
• Subjects: ANTIPROTONS; ASTROPHYSICS; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; COSMIC RADIATION; COSMIC RADIO SOURCES; COSMOLOGY; GAMMA RADIATION; GEV RANGE; MASS SPECTRA; NEUTRALINOS; NONLUMINOUS MATTER; PARTICLE PRODUCTION; POSITRONS; VISIBLE RADIATION
• ISSN: 1475-7516; 1475-7516
• DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2009/08/017

If interpreted in terms of decaying dark matter, the steep rise in the positron fraction of cosmic rays above 10 GeV, as observed by the PAMELA experiment, suggests an underlying production mechanism that favors leptonic channels. We consider a scenario where a portion of the dark matter is made of the gauginos of an unbroken hidden-sector U(1)X, which interact with the visible sector only through a tiny kinetic mixing. The second component of the dark matter is made of neutralinos, and depending on the mass spectrum, either the lightest neutralino or the hidden gaugino becomes unstable and subject to decay. We analyze the cosmic rays, namely the contributions to the positron, the extragalactic gamma-ray and the antiproton flux, which potentially result from these decays and demonstrate that the production of antiprotons can be naturally suppressed. Furthermore, we briefly discuss the apparent double-peak structure of the ATIC data in light of cascade-decaying hidden gauginos, as well as possible signatures at Fermi.