Origin of the tentative AMS antihelium events

Abstract

We demonstrate that the tentative detection of a few antihelium events with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on board the International Space Station can, in principle, be ascribed to the annihilation or decay of Galactic dark matter, when accounting for uncertainties in the coalescence process leading to the formation of antinuclei. We show that the predicted antiproton rate, assuming the antihelium events came from dark matter, is marginally consistent with AMS data, as is the antideuteron rate with current available constraints. We argue that a dark matter origin can be tested with better constraints on the coalescence process, better control of misidentified events, and with future antideuteron data.

6 pages, 2 figures. Updated to match version accepted by Phys. Rev. D

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• Deuteron and Anti-deuteron Production in e+e- Collisions at the Z Resonance
• Antideuterons from dark matter annihilations and hadronization model dependence

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