Gamma-ray lines from dark matter decay

Abstract

No known astrophysical process can generate a monoenergetic gamma-ray with energy in the TeV range, resulting in very stringent constraints on the lifetime of dark matter particles which decay producing gamma-ray lines. We derive in this work constraints on the decay width from observations at current IACTs as well as the estimated sensitivity of the projected CTA. We also discuss the implications of these limits for two dark matter models where the dark matter particle decays at tree level producing gamma-ray lines, namely the gravitino in supersymmetric models without R-parity conservation and a vector of a hidden SU(2) gauge group. We also discuss the constraints on scenarios where the gamma-ray line is generated at the one loop level.