INDIRECT SEARCHES FOR DECAYING DARK MATTER

Abstract

Numerous observations point towards the existence of an unknown elementary particle with no electromagnetic interactions, a large population of which was presumably produced in the early stages of the history of the Universe. This so-called dark matter has survived until the present day, accounting for the 26% of the present energy budget of the Universe. It remains an open question whether the particles comprising the dark matter are absolutely stable or whether they have a finite but very long lifetime, which is a possibility since there is no known general principle guaranteeing perfect stability. In this paper, we review the observational limits on the lifetime of dark matter particles with mass in the GeV–TeV range using observations of the cosmic fluxes of antimatter, gamma-rays and neutrinos. We also examine some theoretically motivated scenarios that provide decaying dark matter candidates.