Constraints to the inert doublet model of dark matter with very high-energy gamma-rays observatories

TL;DR

This paper assesses the Inert Doublet Model of dark matter using gamma-ray data, finding current constraints exclude certain mass ranges and future observatories will explore remaining parameter space.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis combining gamma-ray observations with theoretical and experimental constraints on the IDM.

Findings

Current H.E.S.S. data exclude 1-8 TeV dark matter masses.

CTA will probe the remaining IDM parameter space.

The model's high-mass regime is testable with upcoming gamma-ray telescopes.

Abstract

We investigate the constraints on the Inert Doublet Model (IDM), a minimal extension of the Standard Model of Particle Physics featuring a scalar dark matter candidate, using data from recent and future gamma-ray observatories. The relevance of the model for indirect searches of dark matter stems from two key features: first, in the high-mass regime, IDM can achieve the correct dark matter relic abundance for masses between approximately 500 GeV and 25 TeV, aligning perfectly with the energy sensitivity of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. Second, this regime is dominated by co-annihilation processes, which elevate the thermal-relic velocity-weighted annihilation cross-section to the range of 0.5 $-$ 1.0$\times 10^{-25}$ cm$^3$ s$^{-1}$, thereby enhancing the potential gamma-ray signal from dark matter annihilation. Analyzing recent H.E.S.S. observations of the Galactic Center region, we find that dark matter particle masses within the 1 to 8 TeV range are excluded by current data. Furthermore, we project that the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will comprehensively probe the remaining viable parameter space of the IDM. Our findings are further examined in the context of the most recent theoretical constraints, collider searches, and direct detection results from the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment.