Multimessenger constraints on the dark matter interpretation of the Fermi-LAT Galactic center excess

TL;DR

This study investigates whether dark matter annihilation can explain the Fermi-LAT Galactic center gamma-ray excess, combining gamma-ray, cosmic-ray, and dwarf galaxy data to constrain dark matter models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive multimessenger analysis that constrains dark matter interpretations of the Galactic center excess, highlighting the viability of a 60 GeV muon channel candidate.

Findings

Dark matter models fitting the GCE are compatible with dwarf spheroidal galaxy limits.

AMS-02 cosmic-ray data exclude many dark matter channels, especially hadronic and e+e- channels.

Only a 60 GeV muon channel dark matter candidate remains viable under combined constraints.

Abstract

An excess of $\gamma$ rays in the data measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope in the direction of the Galactic center has been reported in several publications. This excess, labeled as the Galactic center excess (GCE), is detected analyzing the data with different interstellar emission models, point source catalogs and analysis techniques. The characteristics of the GCE, recently measured with unprecedented precision, are all compatible with dark matter particles (DM) annihilating in the main halo of our Galaxy, even if other interpretations are still not excluded. We investigate the DM candidates that fit the observed GCE spectrum and spatial morphology. We assume a simple scenario with DM annihilating into a single channel but we inspect also more complicated models with two and three channels. We perform a search for a $\gamma$-ray flux from a list of 48 Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) using state-of-the-art estimation of the DM density in these objects. Since we do not find any significant signal from the dSphs, we put upper limits on the annihilation cross section that result to be compatible with the DM candidate that fits the GCE. However, we find that the GCE DM signal is excluded by the AMS-02 $\bar{p}$ flux data for all hadronic and semi-hadronic annihilation channels unless the vertical size of the diffusion halo is smaller than 2 kpc -- which is in tension with radioactive cosmic ray fluxes and radio data. Furthermore, AMS-02 $e^+$ data rule out pure or mixed channels with a component of $e^+ e^-$. The only DM candidate that fits the GCE spectrum and is compatible with constraints obtained with the combined dSphs analysis and the AMS-02 $\bar{p}$ and $e^+$ data annihilates purely into $\mu^+\mu^-$, has a mass of 60 GeV and roughly a thermal cross section.