Constraining branon dark matter from observations of the Segue 1 dwarf spheroidal galaxy with the MAGIC telescopes

TL;DR

This study uses MAGIC telescope observations of the Segue 1 galaxy to search for branon dark matter signatures, setting new constraints on branon properties in the multi-TeV mass range.

Contribution

First search for branon dark matter signatures in gamma rays from Segue 1, providing the most stringent limits on branon annihilation cross-section to date.

Findings

No gamma-ray signal detected from Segue 1.

Constraints placed on branon dark matter parameter space.

Upper limit on annihilation cross-section at 0.7 TeV mass.

Abstract

We present the first search for signatures of brane-world extra-dimensional dark matter (DM) in the very-high-energy gamma-ray band by scrutinizing observations of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Segue 1 with the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope system. Branons are new degrees of freedom that appear within flexible brane-world models: they are weakly interacting massive particles and natural DM candidates. The ground-based gamma-ray telescopes MAGIC could indirectly detect branon DM in the multi-TeV mass range by observing secondary products of DM annihilation into Standard Model particles. In the absence of a signal, we place constraints on the branon DM parameter space by using a binned likelihood analysis of almost 160-hours deep exposure on the Segue 1 dwarf spheroidal galaxy by the MAGIC telescopes. Our most stringent limit to the thermally-averaged annihilation cross-section (at $95\%$ confidence level) corresponds to $ \langle \sigma v \rangle \simeq 1.4 \times 10^{-23}~\text{cm}^{3}\text{s}^{-1} $ at a branon mass of $ \sim 0.7~\text{TeV}$.