A Theory of Dark Matter: PAMELA positrons, DAMA, and a New Force in the Dark Sector

Speaker: Douglas Finkbeiner, Harvard University

When: March 23, 2009 (Mon), 12:30PM to 01:30PM (add to my calendar)

This event is part of the HET Seminar Series.

Abstract: A new force in the dark sector can change the expected properties of SUSY WIMP dark matter in significant ways: the annihilation cross section is enhanced by a Sommerfeld enhancement, perhaps by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude; the WIMP annihilates to the new force carrier, which immediately decays to light particles, bypassing the usual constraints from pi-0 gammas; and excited states naturally arise in the WIMP, making inelastic scattering possible. These are exactly the properties needed to explain recent results from astrophysics (PAMELA positrons excess) and direct detection (DAMA) without violating the many tight constraints from other experiments. I will review the current status of the data, show how it can be explained with such a WIMP, and discuss the “smoking gun” signals expected in future data sets (Fermi LAT, CDMS, CRESST, LUX, etc.).