Dark Matter: The Leptonic Connection

TL;DR

This paper explores how dark matter annihilation into leptons could explain high-energy positron and electron observations, emphasizing specific interactions and their implications for signals like gamma rays.

Contribution

It introduces a generic framework of interactions linking dark matter to leptons, connecting theoretical models with recent cosmic ray observations.

Findings

Dark matter annihilation into leptons can produce observable positron and gamma-ray signals.

Specific interactions nu eta^0 - l eta^+ chi facilitate leptonic annihilation channels.

The framework explains recent high-energy cosmic ray data through leptonic dark matter interactions.

Abstract

Recent observatons of high-energy positrons and electrons by the PAMELA and ATIC experiments may be an indication of the annihilation of dark matter into leptons and not quarks. This leptonic connection was foreseen already some years ago in two different models of radiative neutrino mass. We discuss here the generic interactions (nu eta^0 - l eta^+) chi and l^c zeta^- chi^c which allow this to happen, where chi and/or chi^c are fermionic dark-matter candidates. We point out in particular the importance of chi chi to l^+ l^- gamma to both positron and gamma-ray signals within this framework.