Gamma ray lines: What will they tell us about supersymmetry?

Abstract

Neutralino dark matter can be indirectly detected by observing the gamma ray lines from the annihilation processes XX-->gg and XX-->gZ. In this paper we study the implications that the observation of these two lines could have for the determination of the supersymmetric parameter space. Within the minimal supergravity framework, we find that, independently of the dark matter distribution in the Galaxy, such observations by themselves would allow to differentiate between the coannihilation region, the funnel region, and the focus point region. As a result, several restrictions on the msugra parameters can be derived. Within a more general MSSM scenario, we show that the observation of gamma-ray lines might be used to discriminate between a bino-, a wino-, and a higgsino-like neutralino, with important consequences for cosmology and for models of supersymmetry breaking. The detection of the gamma ray lines, therefore, will not only provide an unmistakable signature of dark matter, it will also open a new road toward the determination of supersymmetric parameters.