Consequences of a Dark Disk for the Fermi and PAMELA Signals in Theories with a Sommerfeld Enhancement

TL;DR

This paper explores how a dark disk component in the Milky Way's dark matter distribution can enhance signals detected by Fermi and PAMELA, especially in models with Sommerfeld-enhanced WIMP annihilation.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of a dark disk on cosmic ray signals in Sommerfeld-enhanced dark matter models, extending previous analyses to include baryon-induced substructure effects.

Findings

Dark disk increases the expected cosmic ray signals from dark matter annihilation.

Inclusion of a dark disk can reconcile models with Fermi and PAMELA observations.

Dark disk effects can modify constraints from galactic center observations.

Abstract

Much attention has been given to dark matter explanations of the PAMELA positron fraction and Fermi electronic excesses. For those theories with a TeV-scale WIMP annihilating through a light force-carrier, the associated Sommerfeld enhancement provides a natural explanation of the large boost factor needed to explain the signals, and the light force-carrier naturally gives rise to hard cosmic ray spectra without excess pi0 gamma rays or anti-protons. The Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation rate, which at low relative velocities v scales as 1/v, relies on the comparatively low velocity dispersion of the dark matter particles in the smooth halo. Dark matter substructures in which the velocity dispersion is smaller than in the smooth halo have even larger annihilation rates. N-body simulations containing only dark matter predict the existence of such structures, for example subhalos and caustics, and the effects of these substructures on dark matter indirect detection signals have been studied extensively. The addition of baryons into cosmological simulations of disk-dominated galaxies gives rise to an additional substructure component, a dark disk. The disk has a lower velocity dispersion than the spherical halo component by a factor ~6, so the contributions to dark matter signals from the disk can be more significant in Sommerfeld models than for WIMPs without such low-velocity enhancements. We consider the consequences of a dark disk on the observed signals of cosmic rays as measured by Fermi and PAMELA in models where the WIMP annihilations are into a light boson. We find that both the PAMELA and Fermi results are easily accomodated by scenarios in which a disk signal is included with the standard spherical halo signal. Limits from extrapolations to the center of the galaxy can also be modified.