Decaying dark matter in dwarf spheroidal galaxies: Prospects for X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes to detect dark matter decay signals in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, providing updated decay rate estimates and future detection prospects.

Contribution

It offers revised, more robust estimates of dark matter decay rates in dwarf galaxies and assesses the detectability with current and upcoming telescopes, including future discoveries.

Findings

X-ray telescopes can test 7 keV sterile neutrino decay claims.

Constraints on TeV dark matter decay lifetime are around 10^{27}-10^{28} seconds.

Future surveys will enhance sensitivity to dark matter decays across various mass ranges.

Abstract

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are dark matter dominated systems, and as such, ideal for indirect dark matter searches. If dark matter decays into high-energy photons in the dwarf galaxies, they will be a good target for current and future generations of X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes. By adopting the latest estimates of density profiles of dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way, we revise the estimates dark matter decay rates in dwarf galaxies; our results are more robust, but weaker than previous estimates. Applying these results, we study the detectability of dark matter decays with X-ray and very-high-energy gamma-ray telescopes, such as eROSITA, XRISM, Athena, HAWC, and CTA. Our projection shows that all of these X-ray telescopes will be able to critically assess the claim of the 7 keV sterile neutrino decays from stacked galaxy clusters and nearby galaxies. For TeV decaying dark matter, we can constrain its lifetime to be longer than $\sim$10$^{27}$-10$^{28}$ s. We also make projections for future dwarf galaxies that would be newly discovered with the Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which will further improve the expected sensitivity to dark matter decays both in the keV and PeV mass ranges.