Interpreting the galactic center gamma-ray excess in the NMSSM

Abstract

In the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), all singlet-dominated particles including one neutralino, one CP-odd Higgs boson and one CP-even Higgs boson can be simultaneously lighter than about 100 GeV. Consequently, dark matter (DM) in the NMSSM can annihilate into multiple final states to explain the galactic center gamma-ray excess (GCE). In this work we take into account the foreground and background uncertainties for the GCE and investigate these explanations. We carry out a sophisticated scan over the NMSSM parameter space by considering various experimental constraints such as the Higgs data, B-physics observables, DM relic density, LUX experiment and the dSphs constraints. Then for each surviving parameter point we perform a fit to the GCE spectrum by using the correlation matrix that incorporates both the statistical and systematic uncertainties of the measured excess. After examining the properties of the obtained GCE solutions, we conclude that the GCE can be well explained by the pure annihilations $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0{\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\to b\overline{b} $$ and $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0{\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\to {A}_1{H}_i $$ with A 1 being the lighter singlet- dominated CP-odd Higgs boson and H i denoting the singlet-dominated CP-even Higgs boson or SM-like Higgs boson, and it can also be explained by the mixed annihilation $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0{\tilde{\chi}}_1^0 \to {W}^{+}{W}^{-} $$ , A 1 H 1. Among these annihilation channels, $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0{\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\to {A}_1{H}_i $$ can provide the best interpretation with the corresponding p-value reaching 0.55. We also discuss to what extent the future DM direct detection experiments can explore the GCE solutions and conclude that the XENON-1T experiment is very promising in testing nearly all the solutions.