Model-Independent Indirect Detection Constraints on Hidden Sector Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper develops a model-independent framework to analyze how hidden sector dark matter annihilations, involving cascade decays, affect indirect detection signals and constraints from cosmic microwave background, gamma rays, and positron measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a broad, model-independent approach to study cascade decay effects on indirect dark matter detection signals, capturing spectral broadening without detailed hidden sector assumptions.

Findings

Constraints can vary by up to an order of magnitude due to hidden sector effects.

Fermi dwarf galaxy data is most constraining for photon-rich final states.

AMS-02 positron data is most constraining for electron and muon final states.

Abstract

If dark matter inhabits an expanded "hidden sector", annihilations may proceed through sequential decays or multi-body final states. We map out the potential signals and current constraints on such a framework in indirect searches, using a model-independent setup based on multi-step hierarchical cascade decays. While remaining agnostic to the details of the hidden sector model, our framework captures the generic broadening of the spectrum of secondary particles (photons, neutrinos, e+e- and antiprotons) relative to the case of direct annihilation to Standard Model particles. We explore how indirect constraints on dark matter annihilation limit the parameter space for such cascade/multi-particle decays. We investigate limits from the cosmic microwave background by Planck, the Fermi measurement of photons from the dwarf galaxies, and positron data from AMS-02. The presence of a hidden sector can change the constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross section by up to an order of magnitude in either direction (although the effect can be much smaller). We find that generally the bound from the Fermi dwarfs is most constraining for annihilations to photon-rich final states, while AMS-02 is most constraining for electron and muon final states; however in certain instances the CMB bounds overtake both, due to their approximate independence of the details of the hidden sector cascade. We provide the full set of cascade spectra considered here as publicly available code with examples at http://web.mit.edu/lns/research/CascadeSpectra.html.