Indirect Dark Matter Detection with Cosmic Antimatter

Abstract

The indirect detection of particle dark matter (DM) is based on the search for anomalous components in cosmic rays (CRs) due to the annihilation of DM pairs in the galactic halo, on the top of the standard astrophysical production. These additional exotic components are potentially detectable at Earth as spectral distortions for the various cosmic radiations: $χ+ χ\to q \bar{q}, W^+ W^-, ... \to \bar{p}, \bar{D}, e^+ γand ν's $. Detection of the DM annihilation products has motivated the spectacular development of several new experimental techniques. They range from detectors on ballons or in space for the study of antimatter and gamma-rays, to large area cosmic-ray and gamma-ray detecors on the ground to neutrino telescopes underground for the study of the neutrino component. In the following, we will discuss in detail the antimatter component of DM indirect searches, namely antiprotons, antideuterons, and positrons.

34 pages, published as Chapter 26, pp. 521-546, in Particle Dark Matter: Observations, Models and Searches, edited by Gianfranco Bertone (Cambridge University Press, 2010), available at http://cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521763684