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Article Dans Une Revue Physical Review D Année : 2019

Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons

Jan Heisig
  • Fonction : Auteur
Lukas Klamt
  • Fonction : Auteur
Michael Korsmeier
  • Fonction : Auteur
Michael Krämer
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Global fits of primary and secondary cosmic-ray (CR) fluxes measured by AMS-02 have great potential to study CR propagation models and search for exotic sources of antimatter such as annihilating dark matter (DM). Previous studies of AMS-02 antiprotons revealed a possible hint for a DM signal which, however, could be affected by systematic uncertainties. To test the robustness of such a DM signal, in this work we systematically study two important sources of uncertainties: the antiproton production cross sections needed to calculate the source spectra of secondary antiprotons and the potential correlations in the experimental data, so far not provided by the AMS-02 Collaboration. To investigate the impact of cross-section uncertainties we perform global fits of CR spectra including a covariance matrix determined from nuclear cross-section measurements. As an alternative approach, we perform a joint fit to both the CR and cross-section data. The two methods agree and show that cross-section uncertainties have a small effect on the CR fits and on the significance of a potential DM signal, which we find to be at the level of 3σ. Correlations in the data can have a much larger impact. To illustrate this effect, we determine possible benchmark models for the correlations in a data-driven method. The inclusion of correlations strongly improves the constraints on the propagation model and, furthermore, enhances the significance of the DM signal up to above 5σ. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of providing the covariance of the experimental data, which is needed to fully exploit their potential.

Dates et versions

hal-02073493 , version 1 (20-03-2019)

Identifiants

Citer

Alessandro Cuoco, Jan Heisig, Lukas Klamt, Michael Korsmeier, Michael Krämer. Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons. Physical Review D, 2019, 99 (10), pp.103014. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevD.99.103014⟩. ⟨hal-02073493⟩
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