Dark Matter Annihilation Can Produce a Detectable Antihelium Flux through ${\bar{\Lambda }}_b$ Decays

Abstract

Recent observations by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) have tentatively detected a handful of cosmic-ray antihelium events. Such events have long been considered as smoking-gun evidence for new physics, because astrophysical antihelium production is expected to be negligible. However, the dark-matter-induced antihelium flux is also expected to fall below current sensitivities, particularly in light of existing antiproton constraints. Here, we demonstrate that a previously neglected standard model process -- the production of antihelium through the displaced-vertex decay of ${\bar{\Lambda }}_b$-baryons -- can significantly boost the dark matter induced antihelium flux. This process can triple the standard prompt-production of antihelium, and more importantly, entirely dominate the production of the high-energy antihelium nuclei reported by AMS-02.

4 pages, 3 figures. Appendix adds 3 pages and 2 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Fireball anti-nucleosynthesis
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