SUSY Implications from WIMP Annihilation into Scalars at the Galactic Center

Abstract

An excess in $\gamma$-rays emanating from the galactic centre has recently been observed in the Fermi-LAT data. We investigate the new exciting possibility of fitting the signal spectrum by dark matter annihilating dominantly to a Higgs-pseudoscalar pair. We show that the fit to the $\gamma$-ray excess for the Higgs-pseudoscalar channel can be just as good as for annihilation into bottom-quark pairs. This channel arises naturally in a full model such as the next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and we find regions where dark matter relic density, the $\gamma$-ray signal and other experimental constraints, can all be satisfied simultaneously. Annihilation into scalar pairs allows for the possibility of detecting the Higgs or pseudoscalar decay into two photons, providing a smoking-gun signal of the model.