
Cosmic-Ray Positrons Strongly Constrain Leptophilic Dark Matter
Observations of antimatter cosmic-rays are powerful probes of dark matter annihilation -- as they are produced copiously by dark matter annihilation but were thought to only be produced through secondary astrophysical processes. Observations by PAMELA and AMS-02 found a significant excess in cosmic-ray positrons, which attracted significant interest from the dark matter community, but has been more successfully explained through the emission of e+e- pairs by high-energy pulsars. Here, we note that -- in scenarios where pulsars dominate the high-energy positron flux -- the smoothness of the positron spectrum can constrain sub-dominant dark matter contributions. This is particularly true for leptophilic dark matter models that produce significant bumps in the cosmic-ray positron spectrum. Using recently released AMS-02 data, we set strong cosntraints on dark matter annihilation to e+e-, mu+mu- and tau+tau- final states - producing limits which fall below the thermal annihilation cross-section in many models.
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