Search for: All records

Interactions of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) in the surroundings of their accelerators can naturally explain the observed spectrum and composition of UHECRs, including the abundance of protons below the ankle. Here we show that astrophysical properties of the UHECR source environment such as the temperature, size, and magnetic field can be constrained by UHECR and neutrino data. Applying this to candidate sources with a simple structure shows that starburst galaxies are consistent with these constraints, but galaxy clusters are in tension with them. For multicomponent systems like active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts, the results are indicative, but a customized analysis is needed for definitive conclusions.

 

We report on several new results using anisotropies of UHECRs. We improve and extend the work of Ding, Globus and Farrar, who modeled the UHECR dipole assuming sources follow the dark matter distribution, accounting for deflections in the Galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields but using a simplified treatment of interactions during propagation. The work presented here employs an accurate and self-consistent treatment of the evolution of composition during propagation, allows for and explores the impact of “bias” in the relation between UHECR sources and the dark matter distribution, and investigates the possible generation of arrival-direction-dependent composition anisotropies. Limits on the source number density consistent with the observed anisotropies are derived for the case where UHECR sources follow the dark matter distribution, and compared to a homogeneous source distribution case. 

Traditional dark matter models, e.g., weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), assume dark matter (DM) is weakly coupled to the standard model so that elastic scattering between dark matter and baryons can be described perturbatively by the Born approximation; most direct detection experiments are analyzed according to that assumption. We show that when the fundamental DM-baryon interaction is attractive, dark matter-nucleus scattering is nonperturbative in much of the relevant parameter range. The cross section exhibits rich resonant behavior with a highly nontrivial dependence on atomic mass; furthermore, the extended rather than pointlike nature of nuclei significantly impacts the cross sections and must therefore be properly taken into account. The repulsive case also shows significant departures from perturbative predictions and also requires full numerical calculation. These nonperturbative effects change the boundaries of exclusion regions from existing direct detection, astrophysical and CMB constraints. Near a resonance value of the parameters the typical velocity-independent Yukawa behavior, σ ∼ v0, does not apply. We take the nontrivial velocity dependence into account in our analysis, however it turns out that this more accurate treatment has little impact on limits given current constraints. Correctly treating the extended size of the nucleus and doing an exact integration of the Schrödinger equation does have a major impact relative to past analyses based on the Born approximation and naive form factors, so those improvements are essential for interpreting observational constraints. We report the corrected exclusion regions superseding previous limits from XQC, CRESST Surface Run, CMB power spectrum and extensions with Lyman-α and Milky Way satellites, and Milky Way gas clouds. Some limits become weaker, by an order of magnitude or more, than previous bounds in the literature which were based on perturbation theory and pointlike sources, while others become stronger. Gaps which open by correct treatment of some particular constraint can sometimes be closed using a different constraint. We also discuss the dependence on mediator mass and give approximate expressions for the velocity dependence near a resonance. Sexaquark (uuddss) DM with mass around 2 GeV, which exchanges QCD mesons with baryons, remains unconstrained for most of the parameter space of interest. A statement in the literature that a DM-nucleus cross section larger than 10−25 cm2 implies dark matter is composite, is corrected. 

This is the full high-level report of Snowmass 2021, the most recent of the U.S. High Energy Physics (HEP) Community Planning Exercises, sponsored by the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) of the American Physical Society (APS), with strong consultation from the aligned APS Divisions of Nuclear Physics, Astrophysics, Gravitational Physics, and Physics of Beams. The goal of these community studies, the first of which was in 1982, has been to identify the most important scientific questions in HEP for the following decade, with an eye to the decade after that, and the facilities, infrastructure, and \R&D needed to pursue them. This report consists of an overall summary, chapters on each of the ten main working groups of the study, called "Frontiers", a chapter on the work of the Snowmass Early Career Organization, a chapter on the ongoing search for dark matter as an example of cross-Frontier and cross-disciplinary physics, and a short Conclusion. Many reports and white papers provided input to this document and they are also available on an associated website. 

Abstract A rotation curve inequality that holds for spherically symmetric mass distributions is derived, and tested against the SPARC galaxy rotation curves dataset. We identify several Galaxies, e.g. NGC7793 and UGC11557, which are candidates for hosting non-spherical dark matter structures that could be detected by more precise measurements.