Perspective of monochromatic gamma-ray line detection with the High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility onboard China’s space station

Abstract

HERD is the High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection instrument proposed to operate onboard China's space station in the 2020s. It is designed to detect energetic cosmic ray nuclei, leptons and photons with a high energy resolution (∼ 1% for electrons and photons and 20% for nuclei) and a large geometry factor (> 3 m 2 sr for electrons and diffuse photons and > 2 m 2 sr for nuclei). In this work we discuss the capability of HERD to detect monochromatic γ-ray lines, based on simulations of the detector performance. It is shown that HERD will be one of the most sensitive instruments for monochromatic γ-ray searches at energies between ∼ 10 to a few hundred GeV. Above hundreds of GeV, Cherenkov telescopes will be more sensitive due to their large effective area. As a specific example, we show that a good portion of the parameter space of a supersymmetric dark matter model can be probed with HERD. PACS numbers: 95.35.+d,95.85.Pw

WIMP dark matter candidates and searches—current status and future prospects

“…Future gamma-ray space telescopes are planned, e.g., CALET [277], GAMMA-400 [278] and HERD [279]. CALET, recently launched in 2015, has excellent energy resolution above 100 GeV and is likely to place strong limits on gamma-ray lines [277] although will not be competitive with Fermi-LAT for limits on the continuous spectrum of gamma-rays.…”

“…The Russian-led GAMMA-400 is in preparation and will also mostly contribute to searches for spectral features due to its improved energy resolution compared to Fermi-LAT. The HERD telescope, to be launched in 2020, on the other hand will represent an increase in the effective area and thus should improve on the limits set by Fermi-LAT [279], although detailed studies have not yet been performed.…”

“…They are also called super-WIMPs[279] or FIMPs[78] (feebly interacting massive particles, although the name of frozen-in massive particles would perhaps be more appropriate[10]) in this case. See also a…”

Dark matter in Hidden Valley models with stable and unstable light dark mesons

“…The possible discovery of new dwarf spheroidal galaxies could lead to an improvement in the limits of about an order of magnitude for Fermi-LAT [46]. Stronger limits may be obtained with future more powerful instruments, such as GAMMA-400 [47,48] or HERD (High Energy cosmic Radiation Detection) [49,50]. Finally, there are good prospects for improvements at high mass (above ∼ 100 GeV) with CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) [51][52][53].…”

Classification of dark pion multiplets as dark matter candidates and collider phenomenology

“…An improvement of roughly one order of magnitude for the Fermi-LAT bounds will be possible depending on new dwarf spheroidal galaxy discovery [39]. Finally, future more powerful instruments, such as GAMMA-400 [40,41], HERD (High Energy cosmic Radiation Detection) [42,43] or CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) [44][45][46] may set even stronger limits at different mass scales.…”