Detection of branon dark matter with gamma ray telescopes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for gamma-ray telescopes to detect branon dark matter particles, analyzing current constraints and future detection prospects from various astrophysical sources.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of gamma-ray signals from branon annihilations, assessing current limits and future detection capabilities with upcoming telescopes.

Findings

Current observations are below detection sensitivity for branons.

Future CTA telescope could detect branons above 150 GeV.

Galactic Center and dwarf spheroidals are key targets.

Abstract

Branons are new degrees of freedom that appear in flexible brane-world models corresponding to brane fluctuations. These new fields can behave as standard weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with a significant associated thermal relic density. We analyze the present constraints from their spontaneous annihilations into photons for EGRET, Fermi-LAT and MAGIC, and the prospects for detection in future Cherenkov telescopes. In particular, we focus on possible signals coming from the Galactic Center and different dwarf spheroidals, such as Draco, Sagittarius, Canis Major and SEGUE 1. We conclude that for those targets, present observations are below the sensitivity limits for branon detection by assuming standard dark matter distributions and no additional boost factors. However, future experiments such as CTA could be able to detect gamma-ray photons coming from the annihilation of branons with masses higher than 150 GeV.