Constraints on box-shaped cosmic ray electron feature from dark matter annihilation with the AMS-02 and DAMPE data

TL;DR

This study searches for distinctive box-shaped spectral features in cosmic ray electrons and positrons caused by dark matter annihilation, using AMS-02 and DAMPE data, and sets upper limits on annihilation cross sections.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on box-shaped dark matter annihilation signals in cosmic ray spectra from AMS-02 and DAMPE data.

Findings

No significant box-shaped features detected.

Upper limits on annihilation cross section range from 10^{-26} to 10^{-23} cm^3/s.

Constraints improve understanding of dark matter properties.

Abstract

Precise measurements of spectra of cosmic ray electrons and positrons can effectively probe the nature of dark matter (DM) particles. In a class of models where DM particles initially annihilate into a pair of intermediate particles which then decay into standard model particles, box-shaped spectra can be generated. Such a kind of spectra are distinct from astrophysical backgrounds, and can probably be regarded as characteristic features of the DM annihilation. In this work, we search for such a feature in the total electron plus positron spectrum measured by AMS-02 and DAMPE. No significant evidence for such a DM annihilation component has been found. The 95\% confidence level upper limits of the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section are derived, which range from $\sim 10^{-26}~{\rm cm^3~s^{-1}}$ for DM mass of 50 GeV to $\sim 10^{-23}~{\rm cm^3~s^{-1}}$ for DM mass of 10 TeV.