New limits on dark matter annihilation from AMS cosmic ray positron data

TL;DR

This paper uses high-precision cosmic ray positron data from AMS to set new, stringent limits on dark matter particles below 300 GeV, improving previous constraints significantly.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive limits on dark matter annihilation or decay to leptons using AMS positron data, largely independent of the positron excess origin.

Findings

Set new upper limits on dark matter annihilation cross sections.

Improved constraints by up to two orders of magnitude.

Applicable to dark matter masses below approximately 300 GeV.

Abstract

The AMS experiment onboard the International Space Station has recently provided cosmic ray electron and positron data with unprecedented precision in the range from 0.5 to 350 GeV. The observed rise in the positron fraction at energies above 10 GeV remains unexplained, with proposed solutions ranging from local pulsars to TeV-scale dark matter. Here, we make use of this high quality data to place stringent limits on dark matter with masses below ~300 GeV, annihilating or decaying to leptonic final states, essentially independent of the origin of this rise. We significantly improve on existing constraints, in some cases by up to two orders of magnitude.