Secondary antiprotons as a Galactic Dark Matter probe

Carmelo Evoli; Daniele Gaggero; Dario Grasso

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Secondary antiprotons as a Galactic Dark Matter probe

Carmelo Evoli, Daniele Gaggero, Dario Grasso

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Submitted 20 Apr 2015

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We use this result to determine the most conservative bounds on relevant Dark Matter (DM) annihilation channels: We find that the recent claim of a DM interpretation of a gamma-ray excess in the Galactic Center region cannot be ruled out by current antiproton data.

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We present a novel determination of the astrophysical uncertainties associated to the secondary antiproton flux originating from cosmic-ray spallation on the interstellar gas. We select a set of propagation models compatible with the recent B/C data from PAMELA, and find those providing minimal and maximal antiproton fluxes in different energy ranges. We use this result to determine the most conservative bounds on relevant Dark Matter (DM) annihilation channels: We find that the recent claim of a DM interpretation of a gamma-ray excess in the Galactic Center region cannot be ruled out by current antiproton data. Finally, we discuss the impact of the recently released preliminary data from AMS-02. In particular, we provide a reference model compatible with proton, helium and B/C spectra from this experiment. Remarkably, the main propagation parameters of this model are in agreement with the best fit presented in our earlier statistical analyses. We also show that the antiproton-to-proton ratio does not exhibit any significant anomaly at high energy with respect to our predictions.

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#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	We present a novel determination of the astrophysical uncertainties associated to the secondary antiproton flux originating from cosmic-ray spallation on the interstellar gas.	contribution 1.00	0.94	0.06	asserted 0.99
s1	We select a set of propagation models compatible with the recent B/C data from PAMELA, and find those providing minimal and maximal antiproton fluxes in different energy ranges.	method 0.92	0.96	0.04	asserted 1.00
s2	We use this result to determine the most conservative bounds on relevant Dark Matter (DM) annihilation channels: We find that the recent claim of a DM interpretation of a gamma-ray excess in the Galactic Center region cannot be ruled out by current antiproton data.	result 0.68	0.94	0.74	asserted 0.85
s3	Finally, we discuss the impact of the recently released preliminary data from AMS-02.	contribution 0.87	0.47	0.03	unclear 0.53
s4	In particular, we provide a reference model compatible with proton, helium and B/C spectra from this experiment.	contribution 0.54	0.92	0.03	asserted 1.00
s5	Remarkably, the main propagation parameters of this model are in agreement with the best fit presented in our earlier statistical analyses.	result 0.76	0.82	0.05	asserted 0.99
s6	We also show that the antiproton-to-proton ratio does not exhibit any significant anomaly at high energy with respect to our predictions.	result 0.99	0.92	0.13	asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 0.42 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.96.

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The paper

Original abstract

We present a novel determination of the astrophysical uncertainties associated to the secondary antiproton flux originating from cosmic-ray spallation on the interstellar gas. We select a set of propagation models compatible with the recent B/C data from PAMELA, and find those providing minimal and maximal antiproton fluxes in different energy ranges. We use this result to determine the most conservative bounds on relevant Dark Matter (DM) annihilation channels: We find that the recent claim of a DM interpretation of a gamma-ray excess in the Galactic Center region cannot be ruled out by current antiproton data. Finally, we discuss the impact of the recently released preliminary data from AMS-02. In particular, we provide a reference model compatible with proton, helium and B/C spectra from this experiment. Remarkably, the main propagation parameters of this model are in agreement with the best fit presented in our earlier statistical analyses. We also show that the antiproton-to-proton ratio does not exhibit any significant anomaly at high energy with respect to our predictions.

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References

Forward citations

Cited by 11 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

The Return of the Templates: Revisiting the Galactic Center Excess with Multi-Messenger Observations
astro-ph.HE 2021-12 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

New cosmic-ray-informed diffuse templates confirm the Galactic center gamma-ray excess, reveal a high-energy tail that disfavors millisecond pulsars alone, and leave roughly 40 GeV dark matter annihilating to b quarks...
A Precision Search for WIMPs with Charged Cosmic Rays
astro-ph.HE 2017-11 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

With production cross section uncertainties folded into the antiproton background for the first time, AMS-02 data exclude thermal WIMPs below 570 GeV annihilating to bottom quarks and reduce the 80 GeV excess to 1.1 s...
AMS-02 antiprotons, at last! Secondary astrophysical component and immediate implications for Dark Matter
astro-ph.HE 2015-04 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

Ordinary cosmic-ray collisions reproduce the AMS-02 antiproton-to-proton ratio within astrophysical uncertainties, leaving no clear excess and tightening dark matter limits by roughly an order of magnitude.
Constraints on Primordial Black Holes from Galactic Diffuse Synchrotron Emissions
hep-ph 2026-01 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Galactic synchrotron emissions above 20 MHz can set tighter upper limits on the abundance of primordial black holes with masses above 10^16 grams than previous cosmic-ray electron data.
AMS-02 beryllium data and its implication for cosmic ray transport
astro-ph.HE 2019-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

AMS-02's Be/B ratio, rising up to about 100 GV, is best fit by 10Be decay in a halo of half-thickness about 7 kpc, excluding H below 5 kpc at more than 5 sigma if spallation cross sections are taken at face value.

Show 6 more citing papers

Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons
astro-ph.HE 2019-03 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Antiproton production cross-section uncertainties leave the AMS-02 dark-matter hint at roughly 3 sigma, but unmodelled correlations in the AMS-02 data could raise or lower that significance by a large factor.
Dark Matter's secret liaisons: phenomenology of a dark U(1) sector with bound states
hep-ph 2016-12 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Once bound-state formation is included in both the relic abundance and the annihilation signals, dark matter coupled to a dark U(1) force is excluded for dark photon masses from roughly 1 MeV to 1 GeV across dark matt...
Cosmic-ray propagation with DRAGON2: I. numerical solver and astrophysical ingredients
astro-ph.HE 2016-07 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

The paper releases and validates DRAGON2, a modular cosmic-ray propagation code whose solver is benchmarked operator-by-operator against analytical solutions and applied to spatially dependent and anisotropic diffusio...
Model-Independent Indirect Detection Constraints on Hidden Sector Dark Matter
hep-ph 2015-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Multi-step hidden-sector cascades can shift indirect-detection limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section by up to an order of magnitude in either direction, with Fermi dwarfs dominating photon-rich channels...
From WIMP to FIMP during reheating: collider vs non-collider probes for p-wave annihilation
hep-ph 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

Collider experiments can strongly constrain p-wave-suppressed derivative operators and thereby limit reheating temperature, DM mass, and interaction scale needed to match observed DM abundance during reheating.
The origin of Galactic cosmic rays: challenges to the standard paradigm
astro-ph.HE 2019-03 accept novelty 3.0 of 10

Eight cosmic-ray specialists argue that the supernova-remnant plus diffusion paradigm no longer fits a decade of precise data, and list the observations that could decide whether it needs repair or replacement.

How the literature uses it

46 arXiv papers cite this in 65 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 51 sentences without a confident label

Uses its data or values 5 papers

with $K_0 = 2 ×10^28 cm^2s^-1$ and $δ= 0.42$ [ref] .

Can we explain AMS-02 antiproton and positron excesses simultaneously by nearby supernovae without pulsars nor dark matter? · Supernova explosions in a Dense Cloud · 0.90
In figure [ref] we show the ratio between the fragmentation timescale (computed with the two different models) and the diffusive escape timescale (obtained from fitting recent AMS-02 data in [ref] [The transport parameters corresponding to the best fit are: $D_0/H = 0.75 ×10^28$ cm$^2$/s/kpc, $δ= 0.42$, $v_A = 27$ km/s, $dV_C/dz = 14$ km/s/kpc.]).

Cosmic-ray propagation with DRAGON2: II. Nuclear interactions with the interstellar gas · Inelastic scattering · 0.89
In the calculation of Evoli et al. [ref] the ratio falls with energy with an exponent $α≃0.21$.

Interpretation of the cosmic ray positron and antiproton fluxes · Secondary Nuclei · 0.80

Compares with it 1 paper

(However, they may become more stringent if one takes propagation models or density profiles other than that adopted in Ref. [ref] .)

Revisiting Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Dark-Matter Annihilation · Introduction · 0.89

Cites it as background 7 papers

Recent studies were done to get a set of injection and propagation parameters which could simultaneously reproduce a large set of nuclear data including proton, helium and carbon fluxes, the elemental ratio, and the isotopic ratio [ref] .

Dark Matter Search in Space: Combined Analysis of Cosmic Ray Antiproton-to-Proton Flux Ratio and Positron Flux Measured by AMS-02 · Astro-physical background · 0.82
Indirect detection with antiprotons is an important search strategy to test the dark matter (DM) self-annihilating nature predicted by thermal freeze-out scenarios [ref] .

Constraining heavy dark matter with cosmic-ray antiprotons · Introduction · 0.80
Cosmic-ray (CR) antiprotons are a powerful tool to investigate the particle nature of dark matter (DM), see, for example, [ref] .

Novel dark matter constraints from antiprotons in the light of AMS-02 · Introduction · 0.97

What it cites · 43 sentences without a confident label

Builds on 1 paper

Our main goal is to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of the relevant uncertainties affecting this computation, extending the work presented in [ref] .

Antiprotons from dark matter annihilation in the Galaxy: astrophysical uncertainties · Introduction · 1.00

Uses the method or tool of 6 papers

We compute the DM contribution to the antiproton flux as described in several previous works, e.g., [ref] .

Antiprotons from dark matter annihilation in the Galaxy: astrophysical uncertainties · Antiprotons from dark matter annihilations · 0.98
We compute the DM contribution to the antiproton flux as described in several previous works, e.g., [ref] .

Antiproton constraints on the GeV gamma-ray excess: a comprehensive analysis · Antiprotons from dark matter annihilations · 0.98
We model CR propagation in the Galaxy using the publicly available numerical code DRAGON [ref] .

Cosmic-Ray Nuclei, Antiprotons and Gamma-rays in the Galaxy: a New Diffusion Model · CR propagation in the ISM · 1.00

Uses data or values from 9 papers

In this paper we make use of the recent measurements of the B/C ratio, together with the proton, helium and light nuclei absolute spectra provided by the PAMELA collaboration [ref] to constrain the propagation parameters, and to accurately compute the secondary antiproton spectrum in the $0.1 - 10^3$ GeV energy range.

PAMELA Measurements of Cosmic-ray Proton and Helium Spectra · Introduction · 1.00
In this paper we make use of the recent measurements of the B/C ratio, together with the proton, helium and light nuclei absolute spectra provided by the PAMELA collaboration [ref] to constrain the propagation parameters, and to accurately compute the secondary antiproton spectrum in the $0.1 - 10^3$ GeV energy range.

Measurement of boron and carbon fluxes in cosmic rays with the PAMELA experiment · Introduction · 1.00
In particular, we consider as primary annihilation channels: $DM DM →b b̅$ and $DM DM →W^+W^-$, and we take the corresponding antiproton yields from the PPPC4DMID [ref] .

Weak Corrections are Relevant for Dark Matter Indirect Detection · Antiprotons from dark matter annihilations · 0.98

Compares with 7 papers

Our result is then consistent with the conclusions presented in [ref] .

AMS-02 antiprotons, at last! Secondary astrophysical component and immediate implications for Dark Matter · Conclusions · 0.95
Our results can be now compared with the DM interpretation of the recently claimed signal in the gamma-ray channel located in the inner few degrees around the GC [ref] .

The Characterization of the Gamma-Ray Signal from the Central Milky Way: A Compelling Case for Annihilating Dark Matter · Conservative limit on DM models from antiproton data · 0.87
In figure [ref] we compare our findings with the favored regions of annihilation cross sections connected to the GC excess as reported in [ref] .

Background model systematics for the Fermi GeV excess · Conservative limit on DM models from antiproton data · 0.98

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