Can AMS-02 discriminate the origin of an anti-proton signal?

TL;DR

This paper examines whether AMS-02 can distinguish dark matter signals from astrophysical sources like supernova remnants in antiproton data, highlighting the challenge of degeneracy between these origins.

Contribution

It analyzes the degeneracy between dark matter and astrophysical sources in antiproton signals, providing forecasts for AMS-02 data to assess discriminability.

Findings

Dark matter and supernova remnant signals are significantly degenerate in antiproton data.

Forecasts show difficulty in distinguishing the two sources with upcoming AMS-02 measurements.

The study emphasizes the need for additional methods to identify the origin of antiproton signals.

Abstract

Indirect searches can be used to test dark matter models against expected signals in various channels, in particular antiprotons. With antiproton data available soon at higher and higher energies, it is important to test the dark matter hypothesis against alternative astrophysical sources, e.g. secondaries accelerated in supernova remnants. We investigate the two signals from different dark models and different supernova remnant parameters, as forecasted for the AMS-02, and show that they present a significant degeneracy.