Constraining the dark matter origin of the halo-like 20 GeV $\gamma$-ray excess with the AMS-02 antiproton data

TL;DR

The paper tests whether the 20 GeV gamma-ray excess in the Milky Way halo can be explained by dark matter annihilation by comparing predicted antiproton fluxes with AMS-02 data, concluding it is unlikely to be a dark matter signal.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of antiproton flux predictions from dark matter models explaining the gamma-ray excess, challenging their viability based on AMS-02 observations.

Findings

Predicted antiproton flux exceeds AMS-02 observations for the proposed dark matter parameters.

Proper cosmic ray propagation modeling reduces the required annihilation cross section below the threshold for the gamma-ray excess.

The gamma-ray excess is unlikely to originate from dark matter annihilation given current antiproton data.

Abstract

Very recently, a significant $\sim 20$ GeV gamma-ray excess in the Milky Way halo has been reported and a dark matter origin has been suggested. The inferred dark matter parameters are $ m_\chi \sim 0.5-0.8 $ TeV and $ \langle \sigma v \rangle \sim (5-8) \times 10^{-25}~{\rm cm^3~s^{-1}}$ for the $ b\bar{b} $ channel. If correct, prominent antiproton emission is produced and can be directly tested by the AMS-02 data. In this work we calculate the corresponding antiproton emission and show that the expected flux at $\sim 100$ GeV is already above the AMS-02 observation. A proper treatment on the antiproton background resulting from the high energy cosmic ray propagation would suggest an annihilation cross section of $< 2\times 10^{-26}~{\rm cm^3~s^{-1}}$, which is a few$\times 10$ times lower than that needed to interpret the potential signal. We therefore conclude that the $\sim 20$ GeV gamma-ray excess in the Milky Way halo is not a viable dark matter signal.