Paper detail

Antihelium from Dark Matter

Cosmic-ray anti-nuclei provide a promising discovery channel for the indirect detection of particle dark matter. Hadron showers produced by the pair-annihilation or decay of Galactic dark matter generate anti-nucleons which can in turn form light anti-nuclei. Previous studies have only focused on the spectrum and flux of low energy antideuterons which, although very rarely, are occasionally also produced by cosmic-ray spallation. Heavier elements ($A\geq3$) have instead entirely negligible astrophysical background and a primary yield from dark matter which could be detectable by future experiments. Using a Monte Carlo event generator and an event-by-event phase space analysis, we compute, for the first time, the production spectrum of \antihe and \antiT for dark matter annihilating or decaying to $b\bar{b}$ and ${W^+}{W^-}$ final states. We then employ a semi-analytic model of interstellar and heliospheric propagation to calculate the \antihe flux as well as to provide tools to relate the anti-helium spectrum corresponding to an arbitrary antideuteron spectrum. Finally, we discuss prospects for current and future experiments, including GAPS and AMS-02.