Indirect Searches for Secluded Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of various gamma-ray telescopes to detect secluded dark matter annihilation signals across a broad mass range, offering insights into indirect detection prospects.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the sensitivity of current and future gamma-ray instruments to secluded dark matter models, highlighting their capability to probe these scenarios.

Findings

Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S. can detect signals for certain mass ranges.

CTA and SWGO significantly improve detection prospects at higher masses.

Secluded dark matter models can be effectively constrained by gamma-ray observations.

Abstract

Dark matter is one of the most important open problems in particle physics and cosmology. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) appear as an appealing solution, providing the right relic density with a cross-section at the electroweak scale, however, no WIMP signals were observed until now. Secluded models are good alternatives to the standard ones. In this case, instead of a direct annihilation to the standard model (SM) particles, the dark matter annihilates into mediators which subsequently decay into SM particles. In this way, secluded models may avoid the stringent limits from direct searches, and, at the same time, be probed by indirect detection experiments. Motivated by the appearance of secluded dark matter in several model building endeavors, in this talk, we will present the sensitivity of several gamma-ray instruments (current and prospects), including Fermi-LAT, H.E.S.S., CTA, and SWGO, to secluded dark matter annihilations in the inner galactic halo, and in the dwarf spheroidal galaxies, covering a wide range dark matter masses, from tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV.