Probing dark matter-cosmic ray electron interactions with circular polarisation of photons

Abstract

Abstract Conventional indirect dark matter (DM) searches look for an excess in the electromagnetic emission from the sky that cannot be attributed to known astrophysical sources, but its polarisation has not been explored to date. In this proceeding, I argue that photon polarisation is an important feature to understand new physics interactions. Circular polarisation can be generated from Beyond the Standard Model interactions if they violate parity and there is an asymmetry in the number density of the initial state particles which participate in the interaction. I consider a simplified model for fermionic (Majorana) DM and study the circularly polarised gamma rays from DM cosmic ray electron interactions. I study the differential flux of positive and negative polarised photons from the Galactic Centre and show that the degree of circular polarization can reach up to 90%. Finally, I discuss the detection prospects of this signal in future experiments.