Antideuterons from Dark Matter Decay

Abstract

Recent observations of a large excess of cosmic-ray positrons at high energies have raised a lot of interest in leptonic decay modes of dark matter particles. Nevertheless, dark matter particles in the Milky Way halo could also decay hadronically, producing not only a flux of antiprotons but also a flux of antideuterons. We show that for certain choices of parameters the antideuteron flux from dark matter decay can be much larger than the purely secondary flux from spallation of cosmic rays on the interstellar medium, while the total antiproton flux remains consistent with present observations. We show that if the dark matter particle is sufficiently light, the antideuteron flux from dark matter decay could even be within the reach of planned experiments such as AMS-02 or GAPS. Furthermore, we discuss the prospects to observe the antideuteron flux in the near future if the steep rise in the positron fraction reported by the PAMELA collaboration is interpreted in terms of the decay of dark matter particles.

17 pages, 4 figures. Table 3 and typos corrected

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Decaying Dark Matter in Light of the PAMELA and Fermi LAT Data
• Review of the theoretical and experimental status of dark matter identification with cosmic-ray antideuterons
• Prospects to verify a possible dark matter hint in cosmic antiprotons with antideuterons and antihelium
• Prospects of antideuteron detection from dark matter annihilations or decays at AMS-02 and GAPS
• Dark matter searches with cosmic antideuterons: status and perspectives
• Detecting Gamma-Ray Anisotropies from Decaying Dark Matter: Prospects for Fermi LAT
• Anti-helium from Dark Matter annihilations
• Probing Gravitino Dark Matter with PAMELA and Fermi
• Determination of the Cosmic Antideuteron Flux in a Monte Carlo approach
• General Analysis of Antideuteron Searches for Dark Matter
• Beyond Minimal Lepton Flavored Dark Matter
• Antideuteron Limits on Decaying Dark Matter with a Tuned Formation Model
• The pGAPS experiment: an engineering balloon flight of prototype GAPS
• Antideuterons from Decaying Gravitino Dark Matter
• $\overline{\text{D}}$arkRayNet: Emulation of cosmic-ray antideuteron fluxes from dark matter