The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches
In dark-matter annihilation channels to hadronic final states, stable particles — such as positrons, photons, antiprotons, and antineutrinos — are produced via complex sequences of phenomena including QED/QCD radiation, hadronisation, and hadron decays. These processes are normally modelled by Monte...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer
2024
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| _version_ | 1811139770978402304 |
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| author | Jueid, A Kip, J Ruiz de Austri, R Skands, P |
| author_facet | Jueid, A Kip, J Ruiz de Austri, R Skands, P |
| author_sort | Jueid, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | In dark-matter annihilation channels to hadronic final states, stable particles — such as positrons, photons, antiprotons, and antineutrinos — are produced via complex sequences of phenomena including QED/QCD radiation, hadronisation, and hadron decays. These processes are normally modelled by Monte Carlo (MC) event generators whose limited accuracy imply intrinsic QCD uncertainties on the predictions for indirect-detection experiments like Fermi-LAT, Pamela, IceCube or Ams–02. In this article, we perform a comprehensive analysis of QCD uncertainties, meaning both perturbative and nonperturbative sources of uncertainty are included — estimated via variations of MC renormalization-scale and fragmentation-function parameters, respectively — in antimatter spectra from dark-matter annihilation, based on parametric variations of the Pythia 8 event generator. After performing several retunings of light-quark fragmentation functions, we define a set of variations that span a conservative estimate of the QCD uncertainties. We estimate the effects on antimatter spectra for various annihilation channels and final-state particle species, and discuss their impact on fitted values for the dark-matter mass and thermally-averaged annihilation cross section. We find dramatic impacts which can go up to O(40) GeV for uncertainties on the dark-matter mass and up to O(10%) for the annihilation cross section. We provide the spectra in tabulated form including QCD uncertainties and code snippets to perform fast dark-matter fits, in this github repository. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:11:22Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:f1774473-ea8c-406a-bbbc-6fc6faab48fc |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:11:22Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Springer |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f1774473-ea8c-406a-bbbc-6fc6faab48fc2024-06-18T20:11:58ZThe Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searchesJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:f1774473-ea8c-406a-bbbc-6fc6faab48fcEnglishJisc Publications RouterSpringer2024Jueid, AKip, JRuiz de Austri, RSkands, PIn dark-matter annihilation channels to hadronic final states, stable particles — such as positrons, photons, antiprotons, and antineutrinos — are produced via complex sequences of phenomena including QED/QCD radiation, hadronisation, and hadron decays. These processes are normally modelled by Monte Carlo (MC) event generators whose limited accuracy imply intrinsic QCD uncertainties on the predictions for indirect-detection experiments like Fermi-LAT, Pamela, IceCube or Ams–02. In this article, we perform a comprehensive analysis of QCD uncertainties, meaning both perturbative and nonperturbative sources of uncertainty are included — estimated via variations of MC renormalization-scale and fragmentation-function parameters, respectively — in antimatter spectra from dark-matter annihilation, based on parametric variations of the Pythia 8 event generator. After performing several retunings of light-quark fragmentation functions, we define a set of variations that span a conservative estimate of the QCD uncertainties. We estimate the effects on antimatter spectra for various annihilation channels and final-state particle species, and discuss their impact on fitted values for the dark-matter mass and thermally-averaged annihilation cross section. We find dramatic impacts which can go up to O(40) GeV for uncertainties on the dark-matter mass and up to O(10%) for the annihilation cross section. We provide the spectra in tabulated form including QCD uncertainties and code snippets to perform fast dark-matter fits, in this github repository. |
| spellingShingle | Jueid, A Kip, J Ruiz de Austri, R Skands, P The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title | The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title_full | The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title_fullStr | The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title_short | The Strong Force meets the Dark Sector: a robust estimate of QCD uncertainties for anti-matter dark matter searches |
| title_sort | strong force meets the dark sector a robust estimate of qcd uncertainties for anti matter dark matter searches |
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