DAMPE excess from decaying right-handed neutrino dark matter

Abstract

The flux of high-energy cosmic-ray electrons plus positrons recently measured by the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) exhibits a tentative peak excess at an energy of around $1.4$ TeV. In this paper, we consider the minimal gauged $U(1)_{B-L}$ model with a right-handed neutrino (RHN) dark matter (DM) and interpret the DAMPE peak with a late-time decay of the RHN DM into $e^\pm W^\mp$. We find that a DM lifetime $\tau_{DM} \sim 10^{28}$ s can fit the DAMPE peak with a DM mass $m_{DM}=3$ TeV. This favored lifetime is close to the current bound on it by Fermi-LAT, our decaying RHN DM can be tested once the measurement of cosmic gamma ray flux is improved. The RHN DM communicates with the Standard Model particles through the $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge boson ($Z^\prime$ boson), and its thermal relic abundance is controlled by only three free parameters: $m_{DM}$, the $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge coupling ($\alpha_{BL}$), and the $Z^\prime$ boson mass ($m_{Z^\prime}$). For $m_{DM}=3$ TeV, the rest of the parameters are restricted to be $m_{Z^\prime}\simeq 6$ TeV and $0.00807 \leq \alpha_{BL} \leq 0.0149$, in order to reproduce the observed DM relic density and to avoid the Landau pole for the running $\alpha_{BL}$ below the Planck scale. This allowed region will be tested by the search for a $Z^\prime$ boson resonance at the future Large Hadron Collider.