Cosmic-ray antiprotons in the AMS-02 era: A sensitive probe of dark matter

Abstract

Cosmic-ray antiprotons are a powerful tool for astroparticle physics. While the bulk of measured antiprotons is consistent with a secondary origin, the precise data of the AMS-02 experiment provides us with encouraging prospects to search for a subdominant primary component, e.g. from dark matter. In this brief review, we discuss recent limits on heavy dark matter as well as a tentative signal from annihilation of dark matter with a mass $\lesssim 100$ GeV. We emphasize the special role of systematic errors that can affect the signal. In particular, we discuss recent progress in the modeling of secondary production cross sections and correlated errors in the AMS-02 data, the dominant ones originating from uncertainties in the cross sections for cosmic-ray absorption in the detector.

17 pages + references, 7 figures; Invited review for Modern Physics Letters A; v2: references added