Implications of an astrophysical interpretation of PAMELA and Fermi-LAT data for future searches of a positron signal from dark matter annihilations

Ki-Young Choi, Carlos E. Yaguna

Published 2009-06-03, updated 2009-12-17Version 2

The recent data from PAMELA and Fermi-LAT can be interpreted as evidence of new astrophysical sources of high energy positrons. In that case, such astrophysical positrons constitute an additional background against the positrons from dark matter annihilation. In this paper, we study the effect of that background on the prospects for the detection of a positron dark matter signal in future experiments. In particular, we determine the new regions in the (mass, $\sigmav$) plane that are detectable by the AMS-02 experiment for several dark matter scenarios and different propagation models. We find that, due to the increased background, these regions feature annihilation rates that are up to a factor or three larger than those obtained for the conventional background. That is, an astrophysical interpretation of the present data by PAMELA and Fermi-LAT implies that the detection of positrons from dark matter annihilation is slightly more challenging than previously believed.