Dark matter annihilations into two light fermions and one gauge boson: general analysis and antiproton constraints

TL;DR

This paper analyzes dark matter annihilation processes involving light fermions and gauge bosons, highlighting how gauge boson emission lifts helicity suppression, and uses cosmic antiproton data to constrain these interactions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive calculation of annihilation cross sections for Majorana dark matter with scalar mediators, including gauge boson emission, and derives constraints from cosmic antiproton observations.

Findings

Annihilation rates are enhanced when dark matter is degenerate with the scalar mediator.

Gauge boson emission lifts helicity suppression, increasing annihilation signals.

Cosmic antiproton data constrains the annihilation cross sections.

Abstract

We study in this paper the scenario where the dark matter is constituted by Majorana particles which couple to a light Standard Model fermion and an extra scalar via a Yukawa coupling. In this scenario, the annihilation rate into the light fermions with the mediation of the scalar particle is strongly suppressed by the mass of the fermion. Nevertheless, the helicity suppression is lifted by the associated emission of a gauge boson, yielding annihilation rates which could be large enough to allow the indirect detection of the dark matter particles. We perform a general analysis of this scenario, calculating the annihilation cross section of the processes \chi\chi\rightarrow f\bar f V when the dark matter particle is a SU(2)_L singlet or doublet, f is a lepton or a quark, and V is a photon, a weak gauge boson or a gluon. We point out that the annihilation rate is particularly enhanced when the dark matter particle is degenerate in mass to the intermediate scalar particle, which is a scenario barely constrained by collider searches of exotic charged or colored particles. Lastly, we derive upper limits on the relevant cross sections from the non-observation of an excess in the cosmic antiproton-to-proton ratio measured by PAMELA.