# Probing heavy dark matter decays with multi-messenger astrophysical data

## TL;DR

This paper establishes new constraints on decaying heavy dark matter particles across a wide mass range by analyzing multi-messenger astrophysical data, significantly limiting their possible lifetimes based on cosmic-ray and gamma-ray observations.

## Contribution

The study introduces a comprehensive multi-messenger approach using advanced simulation and propagation tools to set conservative limits on dark matter decay lifetimes over a broad mass spectrum.

## Key findings

- Dark matter lifetimes shorter than 10^{28} seconds are excluded.
- Constraints reach up to 10^{30} seconds for very heavy dark matter.
- The analysis covers dark matter masses from 10^4 to 10^{16} GeV.

## Abstract

We set conservative constraints on decaying dark matter particles with masses spanning a very wide range ($10^4-10^{16}$ GeV). For this we use multimessenger observations of cosmic-ray (CR) protons/antiprotons, electrons/positrons, neutrinos/antineutrinos and gamma rays. Focusing on decays into the $\bar{b}b$ channel, we simulate the spectra of dark matter yields by using the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi equations and the $\texttt{Pythia}$ package. We then propagate the CRs of dark matter origin till Earth by using the state-of-the-art numerical frameworks $\texttt{CRPropa}$, $\texttt{GALPROP}$ and $\texttt{HelMod}$ for the solution of the CR transport equation in the extragalactic, Galactic region and the heliosphere, respectively. Conservative limits are obtained by requiring that the predicted dark matter spectra at Earth be less than the observed CR spectra. Overall, we exclude dark matter lifetimes of $10^{28}$ s or shorter for all the masses investigated in this work. The most stringent constraints reach $10^{30}$ s for very heavy dark matter particles with masses in the range $10^{11}-10^{14}$ GeV.