Effective Theory of Dark Matter Decay into Monochromatic Photons and its Implications: Constraints from Associated Cosmic-Ray Emission

Abstract

We show that there exists only a quite limited number of higher dimensional operators which can naturally lead to a slow decay of dark matter particles into monochromatic photons. As each of these operators inevitably induces decays into particles other than photons, we show that the gamma-lines it induces are always accompanied by a continuum flux of cosmic rays. Hence constraints on cosmic-ray fluxes imply constraints on the intensity of gamma-lines and vice-versa. A comparison with up to date observational bounds shows the possibilities to observe or exclude cosmic rays associated to gamma-line emission, so that one could better determine the properties of the DM particle, possibly discriminating between some of the operators.

9 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; v2: minor changes to match published version

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Cited by in corpus (20)

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• Indirect Searches for Decaying Dark Matter
• Neutrino Lines from Majoron Dark Matter
• Gamma ray tests of Minimal Dark Matter
• The Coannihilation Codex
• Internal bremsstrahlung signatures in light of direct dark matter searches
• Scalar Representations in the Light of Electroweak Phase Transition and Cold Dark Matter Phenomenology
• New Search for Monochromatic Neutrinos from Dark Matter Decay
• Cosmological bounds on dark matter-photon coupling
• Minimal Decaying Dark Matter and the LHC
• Simplified Dark Matter Models Confront the Gamma Ray Excess
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• Effective field theory and keV lines from dark matter
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• Constraints on Dark Matter-Photon Coupling in the Presence of Time-Varying Dark Energy
• Charged Lepton Flavor Violation in a class of Radiative Neutrino Mass Generation Models
• Indirect searches of Galactic diffuse dark matter in INO-MagICAL detector