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Dark Matter Annihilation Can Produce a Detectable Antihelium Flux through $\bar{\Lambda}_b$ Decays

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-03-17 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Recent observations by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) have tentatively detected a handful of cosmic-ray antihelium events. Such events have long been considered as smoking-gun evidence for new physics, because astrophysical antihelium production is expected to be negligible. However, the dark-matter-induced antihelium flux is also expected to fall below current sensitivities, particularly in light of existing antiproton constraints. Here, we demonstrate that a previously neglected standard model process -- the production of antihelium through the displaced-vertex decay of Λˉb\bar{\Lambda}_b-baryons -- can significantly boost the dark matter induced antihelium flux. This process can triple the standard prompt-production of antihelium, and more importantly, entirely dominate the production of the high-energy antihelium nuclei reported by AMS-02.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.16251,
  title  = {Dark Matter Annihilation Can Produce a Detectable Antihelium Flux through $\bar{\Lambda}_b$ Decays},
  author = {Martin Wolfgang Winkler and Tim Linden},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.16251},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures. Appendix adds 3 pages and 2 figures