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.

Submitted 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

References in corpus (68)

• Observation of an anomalous positron abundance in the cosmic radiation
• A Theory of Dark Matter
• Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: AGN Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?
• Precise Relic WIMP Abundance and its Impact on Searches for Dark Matter Annihilation
• Extended gamma-ray sources around pulsars constrain the origin of the positron flux at Earth
• Background model systematics for the Fermi GeV excess
• Weak Corrections are Relevant for Dark Matter Indirect Detection
• Search for dark matter annihilations towards the inner Galactic halo from 10 years of observations with H.E.S.S
• The origin of the positron excess in cosmic rays
• General Constraints on Dark Matter Decay from the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Asymmetric Dark Matter from Leptogenesis
• Search for photon line-like signatures from Dark Matter annihilations with H.E.S.S
• Turning off the Lights: How Dark is Dark Matter?
• Simplified Dark Matter Models for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• Cosmological constraints on exotic injection of electromagnetic energy
• A Renormalizable Model for the Galactic Center Gamma Ray Excess from Dark Matter Annihilation
• Extended Anomalous Foreground Emission in the WMAP 3-Year Data
• Possible Evidence For Dark Matter Annihilation In The Inner Milky Way From The Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope
• The Origin of the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background and Implications for Dark-Matter Annihilation
• Cosmic-ray propagation with DRAGON2: I. numerical solver and astrophysical ingredients
• Evidence Of Dark Matter Annihilations In The WMAP Haze
• Refined Bounds on MeV-scale Thermal Dark Sectors from BBN and the CMB
• 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
• Discovery of a 3.5 keV line in the Galactic Center and a Critical Look at the Origin of the Line Across Astronomical Targets
• Hidden On-Shell Mediators for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• WIMPs at the Galactic Center
• 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?
• Reopening the window on charged dark matter
• Higgs portal vector dark matter for $\mathrm{GeV}$ scale $\gamma$-ray excess from galactic center
• Hitomi constraints on the 3.5 keV line in the Perseus galaxy cluster
• A deep search for decaying dark matter with XMM-Newton blank-sky observations
• Constraining Very Heavy Dark Matter Using Diffuse Backgrounds of Neutrinos and Cascaded Gamma Rays
• Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons
• Hidden Sector Dark Matter Models for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• NMSSM Interpretation of the Galactic Center Excess
• New very local interstellar spectra for electrons, positrons, protons and light cosmic ray nuclei
• Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation from Effective Field Theory
• A new look at the cosmic ray positron fraction
• Where do the 3.5 keV photons come from? A morphological study of the Galactic Center and of Perseus
• Unveiling the nature of dark matter with high redshift 21 cm line experiments
• Non-universal BBN bounds on electromagnetically decaying particles
• 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
• 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
• Laboratory measurements compellingly support charge-exchange mechanism for the 'dark matter' $\sim$3.5 keV X-ray line
• Dark matter or correlated errors: Systematics of the AMS-02 antiproton excess
• Search for dark matter signals towards a selection of recently-detected DES dwarf galaxy satellites of the Milky Way with H.E.S.S
• 3.55 keV photon lines from axion to photon conversion in the Milky Way and M31
• The EMU view of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Troubles for sub-TeV WIMPs
• Towards a Supersymmetric Description of the Fermi Galactic Center Excess
• Distinguishing Dark Matter from Unresolved Point Sources in the Inner Galaxy with Photon Statistics
• The cosmic X-ray and gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation
• Dissecting the inner Galaxy with $\gamma$-ray pixel count statistics
• Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess through a Dark Shower
• New minimal, median, and maximal propagation models for dark matter searches with Galactic cosmic rays
• Estimating the GeV Emission of Millisecond Pulsars in Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
• Consistency of dark matter interpretations of the 3.5 keV X-ray line
• 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
• Reply to Two Comments on "Dark matter searches going bananas the contribution of Potassium (and Chlorine) to the 3.5 keV line"
• The XMM Cluster Survey: new evidence for the 3.5 keV feature in clusters is inconsistent with a dark matter origin
• Observational consistency and future predictions for a 3.5 keV ALP to photon line
• Indirect Detection of Dark Matter in the Galaxy

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