Dark Matter CMB Constraints and Likelihoods for Poor Particle Physicists

TL;DR

This paper provides comprehensive CMB constraints on dark matter annihilation and decay channels, enabling researchers to evaluate a wide range of models using interpolated likelihood functions from WMAP7 and Planck data.

Contribution

It offers detailed constraints and likelihood functions for all relevant dark matter channels with spectra computed via PYTHIA, facilitating broader application in dark matter research.

Findings

Constraints on annihilation cross section and decay rate for various channels.

Interpolated likelihood functions for WMAP7 and Planck data.

Applicability to models with mixed annihilation or decay channels.

Abstract

The cosmic microwave background provides constraints on the annihilation and decay of light dark matter at redshifts between 100 and 1000, the strength of which depends upon the fraction of energy ending up in the form of electrons and photons. The resulting constraints are usually presented for a limited selection of annihilation and decay channels. Here we provide constraints on the annihilation cross section and decay rate, at discrete values of the dark matter mass, for all the annihilation and decay channels whose secondary spectra have been computed using PYTHIA in arXiv:1012.4515 ("PPPC4DMID: A Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Dark Matter Indirect Detection"), namely e, mu, tau, V -> e, V -> mu, V -> tau, u, d, s, c, b, t, gamma, g, W, Z and h. By interpolating in mass, these can be used to find the CMB constraints and likelihood functions from WMAP7 and Planck for a wide range of dark matter models, including those with annihilation or decay into a linear combination of different channels.