Cosmic ray positrons from annihilations into a new, heavy lepton

Abstract

Recent results from the PAMELA experiment indicate an excess in the positron spectrum above 10 GeV, but antiproton data are consistent with the expected astrophysical backgrounds. We propose a scenario that reproduces these features. Dark matter annihilates through channels involving a new heavy vectorlike lepton which then decays by mixing with standard model leptons. If charged, this heavy lepton might be produced at the LHC, and could lead to multilepton final states or to long-lived charged tracks. Large neutrino detectors such as ANTARES or IceCube might be sensitive to a monochromatic neutrino line. This scenario may be simply embedded in various models, including an extension to the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model.