Les Houches Lectures on Indirect Detection of Dark Matter

Abstract

These lectures, presented at the 2021 Les Houches Summer School on Dark Matter, provide an introduction to key methods and tools of indirect dark matter searches, as well as a status report on the field circa summer 2021. Topics covered include the possible effects of energy injection from dark matter on the early universe, methods to calculate both the expected energy distribution and spatial distribution of particles produced by dark matter interactions, an outline of theoretical models that predict diverse signals in indirect detection, and a discussion of current constraints and some claimed anomalies. These notes are intended as an introduction to indirect dark matter searches for graduate students, focusing primarily on intuition-building estimates and useful concepts and tools.

arXiv commentSubmitted to SciPost Physics Lecture Notes, Les Houches Summer School Series. v2 fixes typos, clarifies a few points, and adds one figure. v3 adds a reference accidentally omitted from v2. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1710.05137

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• Probing the Pulsar Origin of the Anomalous Positron Fraction with AMS-02 and Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes
• Refined Bounds on MeV-scale Thermal Dark Sectors from BBN and the CMB
• New Constraints on IGM Thermal Evolution from the Lyα Forest Power Spectrum
• Tighter Limits on Dark Matter Explanations of the Anomalous EDGES 21cm Signal
• Gamma-ray Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter and Implications for IceCube
• Making dark matter out of light: freeze-in from plasma effects
• Cosmic Ray Protons in the Inner Galaxy and the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• Limits on Dark Matter Annihilation Signals from the Fermi LAT 4-year Measurement of the Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background
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• Extended gamma-ray emission from Coy Dark Matter
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• Search for $\gamma$-ray line signals from dark matter annihilations in the inner Galactic halo from ten years of observations with H.E.S.S
• A Precision Search for WIMPs with Charged Cosmic Rays
• Matrix element analyses of dark matter scattering and annihilation
• Galactic Bulge Preferred Over Dark Matter for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• Reviving Millicharged Dark Matter for 21-cm Cosmology
• Disrupted Globular Clusters Can Explain the Galactic Center Gamma Ray Excess
• WIMPs at the Galactic Center
• Model-Independent Indirect Detection Constraints on Hidden Sector Dark Matter
• Fitting the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess with Cascade Annihilations
• Dark matter constraints from box-shaped gamma-ray features
• Galactic Center gamma-ray "excess" from an active past of the Galactic Centre?
• A Ground Plane Artifact that Induces an Absorption Profile in Averaged Spectra from Global 21-cm Measurements - with Possible Application to EDGES
• Reopening the window on charged dark matter
• Too Hot, Too Cold or Just Right? Implications of a 21-cm Signal for Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• Non-Detection of X-Ray Emission From Sterile Neutrinos in Stacked Galaxy Spectra
• Towards a complete treatment of the cosmological recombination problem
• Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at $z>5$ with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra
• Higgs portal vector dark matter for $\mathrm{GeV}$ scale $\gamma$-ray excess from galactic center
• Dissecting cosmic-ray electron-positron data with Occam's Razor: the role of known Pulsars
• Hitomi constraints on the 3.5 keV line in the Perseus galaxy cluster
• Propagation of cosmic rays in the AMS-02 era
• A deep search for decaying dark matter with XMM-Newton blank-sky observations
• Where will supersymmetric dark matter first be seen?
• Constraining Very Heavy Dark Matter Using Diffuse Backgrounds of Neutrinos and Cascaded Gamma Rays
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• Prospects of detecting gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters: cosmic rays and dark matter annihilations
• Dark Matter Constraints from a Joint Analysis of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Observations with VERITAS
• The characteristics of the Galactic center excess measured with 11 years of Fermi-LAT data
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• The Fermi-LAT GeV Excess Traces Stellar Mass in the Galactic Bulge
• CMB Anisotropy in the Decaying Neutrino Cosmology
• Dark Matter Strikes Back at the Galactic Center
• Systematic Uncertainties In Constraining Dark Matter Annihilation From The Cosmic Microwave Background
• Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons
• Self-Generated Cosmic-Ray Confinement in TeV Halos: Implications for TeV Gamma-Ray Emission and the Positron Excess
• AMS-02 antiprotons, at last! Secondary astrophysical component and immediate implications for Dark Matter
• Dark Matter Limits From Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with The HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory
• Cosmological Axion and neutrino mass constraints from Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data
• Density Profiles of CDM Microhalos and their Implications for Annihilation Boost Factors
• Hidden Sector Dark Matter Models for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• Lessons from HAWC PWNe observations: the diffusion constant is not a constant; Pulsars remain the likeliest sources of the anomalous positron fraction; Cosmic rays are trapped for long periods of time in pockets of inefficient diffusion
• NMSSM Interpretation of the Galactic Center Excess
• Evolution of cosmological dark matter perturbations
• Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from Fermi Observations of Nearby Galaxies and Clusters
• AMS02 results support the secondary origin of cosmic ray positrons
• The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5-keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations
• An X-Ray Line from eXciting Dark Matter
• New very local interstellar spectra for electrons, positrons, protons and light cosmic ray nuclei
• Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation from Effective Field Theory
• Searching for decaying dark matter in deep XMM-Newton observation of the Draco dwarf spheroidal
• Oscillating Asymmetric Dark Matter
• Searches for Cosmic-Ray Electron Anisotropies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Constraining heavy dark matter with cosmic-ray antiprotons
• Where do the AMS-02 anti-helium events come from?
• Consequences of DM/antiDM Oscillations for Asymmetric WIMP Dark Matter
• Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from the Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background
• W/Z Bremsstrahlung as the Dominant Annihilation Channel for Dark Matter, Revisited
• A novel scenario for the possible X-ray line feature at ~3.5 keV: Charge exchange with bare sulfur ions
• Statistics of gamma-ray point sources below the Fermi detection limit
• DarkHistory: A code package for calculating modified cosmic ionization and thermal histories with dark matter and other exotic energy injections
• Strong Evidence that the Galactic Bulge is Shining in Gamma Rays
• A new look at the cosmic ray positron fraction
• Searching for the 3.5 keV Line in the Deep Fields with Chandra: the 10 Ms observations
• PPPC 4 DM$\nu$: A Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Neutrinos from DM annihilations in the Sun
• Where do the 3.5 keV photons come from? A morphological study of the Galactic Center and of Perseus
• Deep XMM Observations of Draco rule out at the 99% Confidence Level a Dark Matter Decay Origin for the 3.5 keV Line
• Foreground Mismodeling and the Point Source Explanation of the Fermi Galactic Center Excess
• Unveiling the nature of dark matter with high redshift 21 cm line experiments
• Non-universal BBN bounds on electromagnetically decaying particles
• Prospects for indirect dark matter searches with MeV photons
• W/Z Bremsstrahlung as the Dominant Annihilation Channel for Dark Matter
• Radio detection prospects for a bulge population of millisecond pulsars as suggested by Fermi LAT observations of the inner Galaxy
• Enabling Forbidden Dark Matter
• Search for 100 MeV to 10 GeV gamma-ray lines in the Fermi-LAT data and implications for gravitino dark matter in the $\mu \nu$SSM
• Prospects for Heavy WIMP Dark Matter with CTA: the Wino and Higgsino
• The cosmology of sub-MeV dark matter freeze-in
• On the Annihilation Rate of WIMPs
• Constraining Galactic cosmic-ray parameters with Z<=2 nuclei
• Combined search for neutrinos from dark matter self-annihilation in the Galactic Centre with ANTARES and IceCube
• Galactic halo size in the light of recent AMS-02 data
• Soft Collinear Effective Theory for Heavy WIMP Annihilation
• Linear cosmological constraints on 2-body decaying dark matter scenarios and the $S_8$ tension
• Spurious Point Source Signals in the Galactic Center Excess
• The Coannihilation Codex
• Laboratory measurements compellingly support charge-exchange mechanism for the 'dark matter' $\sim$3.5 keV X-ray line
• The 21 cm signal and the interplay between dark matter annihilations and astrophysical processes
• A Search for Dark Matter Annihilation in Galaxy Groups
• AMS-02 antiprotons' consistency with a secondary astrophysical origin
• Dark matter or correlated errors: Systematics of the AMS-02 antiproton excess
• Cosmic-ray Antinuclei as Messengers of New Physics: Status and Outlook for the New Decade
• Towards a realistic astrophysical interpretation of the gamma-ray Galactic center excess
• Deciphering Contributions to the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background from 2 GeV to 2 TeV
• Search for dark matter signals towards a selection of recently-detected DES dwarf galaxy satellites of the Milky Way with H.E.S.S
• Search for dark matter towards the Galactic Centre with 11 years of ANTARES data
• 3.55 keV photon lines from axion to photon conversion in the Milky Way and M31
• The Enigmatic Galactic Center Excess: Spurious Point Sources and Signal Mismodeling
• The EMU view of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Troubles for sub-TeV WIMPs
• Towards a Supersymmetric Description of the Fermi Galactic Center Excess
• A New Mask for An Old Suspect: Testing the Sensitivity of the Galactic Center Excess to the Point Source Mask
• Unveiling the Gamma-ray Source Count Distribution Below the Fermi Detection Limit with Photon Statistics
• Distinguishing Dark Matter from Unresolved Point Sources in the Inner Galaxy with Photon Statistics
• Resummed Photon Spectra for WIMP Annihilation
• Precision Photon Spectra for Wino Annihilation
• CHAMP Cosmic Rays
• Lyman-$\alpha$ Constraints on Cosmic Heating from Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
• The GCE in a New Light: Disentangling the $\gamma$-ray Sky with Bayesian Graph Convolutional Neural Networks
• Impeded Dark Matter
• SkyFACT: High-dimensional modeling of gamma-ray emission with adaptive templates and penalized likelihoods
• Dark Matter Annihilation Can Produce a Detectable Antihelium Flux through ${\bar{\Lambda }}_b$ Decays
• A Search for Dark Matter Annihilation in the Milky Way Halo
• Measuring the Local Diffusion Coefficient with H.E.S.S. Observations of Very High-Energy Electrons
• CMB bounds on dark matter annihilation: Nucleon energy-losses after recombination
• Searching for Dark Matter in the Galactic Halo with a Wide Field of View TeV Gamma-ray Observatory in the Southern Hemisphere
• The cosmic X-ray and gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation
• Dark Matter Interpretation of the Fermi-LAT Observations Toward the Outer Halo of M31
• Dissecting the inner Galaxy with $\gamma$-ray pixel count statistics
• Semi-Inclusive Wino and Higgsino Annihilation to LL'
• The One-Loop Correction to Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation
• Probing the Milky Way's Dark Matter Halo for the 3.5 keV Line
• Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess through a Dark Shower
• Analyzing γ-rays of the Galactic Center with Deep Learning
• New minimal, median, and maximal propagation models for dark matter searches with Galactic cosmic rays
• NPTFit: A code package for Non-Poissonian Template Fitting
• Estimating the GeV Emission of Millisecond Pulsars in Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
• Comparing the Galactic Bulge and Galactic Disk Millisecond Pulsars
• Consistency of dark matter interpretations of the 3.5 keV X-ray line
• eXTP perspectives for the $\nu$MSM sterile neutrino dark matter model
• Dwarf spheroidal J-factors without priors: A likelihood-based analysis for indirect dark matter searches
• Hunting super-heavy dark matter with ultra-high energy photons
• Ruling out $\sim 100-300$ GeV thermal relic annihilating dark matter by radio observation of the Andromeda galaxy
• The role of the eROSITA all-sky survey in searches for sterile neutrino dark matter
• Reply to Two Comments on "Dark matter searches going bananas the contribution of Potassium (and Chlorine) to the 3.5 keV line"
• Fermi/LAT observations of Dwarf Galaxies highly constrain a Dark Matter Interpretation of Excess Positrons seen in AMS-02, HEAT, and PAMELA
• The XMM Cluster Survey: new evidence for the 3.5 keV feature in clusters is inconsistent with a dark matter origin
• Inference of Unresolved Point Sources At High Galactic Latitudes Using Probabilistic Catalogs
• Entering the Era of Dark Matter Astronomy? Near to Long-Term Forecasts in X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Bands
• Spherical Cows in Dark Matter Indirect Detection
• Precise yield of high-energy photons from Higgsino dark matter annihilation
• The Galactic bulge millisecond pulsars shining in X rays: A gamma-ray perspective
• Dark Matter "Transporting" Mechanism Explaining Positron Excesses
• Observational consistency and future predictions for a 3.5 keV ALP to photon line
• Response to a comment on Dessert et al. "The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5 keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations"
• Modelling the flux distribution function of the extragalactic gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation
• A Search for Neutrino Point-Source Populations in 7 Years of IceCube Data with Neutrino-count Statistics
• Dark Initial State Radiation and the Kinetic Mixing Portal
• Micro-X Sounding Rocket: Transitioning from First Flight to a Dark Matter Configuration
• Indirect Detection of Dark Matter in the Galaxy
• Hot Dark Matter in Cosmology
• Diffusive Shock Acceleration: the Fermi Mechanism

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Bounds on Long-lived Dark Matter Mediators from Neutron Stars
• Revisiting the Fermionic Dark Matter Absorption on Electron Target
• Constraints on dark matter annihilation and decay from the large-scale structure of the nearby universe
• New Physics Search at the CEPC: a General Perspective
• Updated constraints on WIMP dark matter annihilation by radio observations of M31
• Explorations of pseudo-Dirac dark matter having keV splittings and interacting via transition electric and magnetic dipole moments
• Deep learning techniques for Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes
• Late-forming black holes and the antiproton, gamma-ray, and anti-helium excesses
• A Primer on Dark Matter
• Neutrinos from the Sun can discover dark matter-electron scattering
• Cosmic Birefringence as a probe of dark matter nature: Sterile neutrino and dipolar dark matter
• Astrophysical constraints from synchrotron emission on very massive decaying dark matter
• Coherence in scattering of massive weakly interacting neutral particles off nuclei
• Exploring Four Fermion Contact Couplings of a Dark Fermion and an Electron at Hadron Colliders and Direct Detection Experiments
• Constraining Gluonic Contact Interaction of a Neutrino-philic Dark Fermion at Hadron Colliders and Direct Detection Experiments
• Signatures of inhomogeneous dark matter annihilation on 21-cm
• On the Gravitational Wave Counterpart to a Gamma-ray Galactic Center Signal from Millisecond Pulsars
• Investigating sub-MeV dark matter annihilation to neutrinos using direct detection experiments
• Probing Non-Minimal Dark Sectors via the 21 cm Line at Cosmic Dawn
• Analytical insight into dark matter subhalo boost factors for Sommerfeld-enhanced $s$- and $p$-wave $\gamma$-ray signals
• LHAASO Galactic Plane $\gamma$-rays Strongly Constrain Heavy Dark Matter
• Hyper Stealth Dark Matter and Long-Lived Particles
• Final bound-state formation effect on dark matter annihilation
• Dark Matter spikes around Sgr A* in $\gamma$-rays