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Published on: July 12, 2013
Molecular Ionization Rates and Ultracompact Dark Matter Minihalos
1Institut d'Astrophysique, UMR 7095 CNRS, Sorbonne Université, 98bis Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA, and Beecroft Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Molecular ionization in the central molecular zone of our Galaxy is enhanced over the typical galactic value by an order of magnitude or more. This cannot be easily explained for dense Galactic center molecular complexes in the absence of embedded sources of low energy cosmic rays. We provide such a source in the form of ultracompact minihalos of self-annihilating dark matter for a variety of annihilation channels that depend on the particle mass and model. Such sources are motivated for plausible inflationary power spectrum parameters, and while possibly subdominant in terms of the total dark matter mass within the Galactic bulge, might also account for, or at least not be in tension with, the Fermi Galactic center γ-ray excess.
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