Speaker
Description
Global fits of primary and secondary cosmic-ray (CR) fluxes measured by the AMS-02 experiment provide a powerful tool to probe the existence of exotic sources of antimatter in our Galaxy, such as annihilation or decay of dark matter (DM). Previous analyses derived strong constraints on the annihilation cross section of a potential DM particle with masses above a couple of hundred GeV, while between 10 and 20 GeV a small excess over the expected astrophysical background was observed in the antiprotons spectrum, which is compatible with a 70 GeV DM particle and a thermal annihilation cross section. To establish or disprove the existence of this potential excess requires a better understanding and consideration of systematic uncertainties. We will review the most important effects, in particular focusing on uncertainties arriving from the production cross section of secondary antiprotons. By performing a joint fit, simultaneously to CR and cross section data, we are able to explore correlations and marginalize over the cross section uncertainties. Furthermore, we will discuss the effects of a potential correlation in the CR data. The most direct but complementary way to test the DM interpretation would be the observation of low-energy antinuclei in CRs. We will shortly review the prospects to observe antideuteron or antihelium with AMS-02 and the future experiment GAPS.