http://arxiv.org/abs/2210.05685
Starburst galaxies are well-motivated astrophysical emitters of high-energy gamma-rays. They are well-known cosmic-ray “reservoirs”, thanks to their large magnetic fields which confine high-energy protons for $\sim 10^5$ years. Over such long times, cosmic-ray transport can be significantly affected by scatterings with sub-GeV dark matter. Here we point out that this scattering distorts the cosmic-ray spectrum, and the distortion can be indirectly observed by measuring the gamma-rays produced by cosmic-rays via hadronic collisions. Present gamma-ray data show no sign of such a distortion, leading to stringent bounds on the cross section between protons and dark matter. These are competitive with current bounds, but have large room for improvement with the future gamma-ray measurements in the 0.1–10 TeV range from the Cherenkov Telescope Array, which can strengthen the limits by as much as two orders of magnitude.
A. Ambrosone, M. Chianese, D. Fiorillo, et. al.
Thu, 13 Oct 22
48/68
Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures plus references plus 5 pages, 1 table, 3 figures in supplementary material
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