Radiation from matter-antimatter annihilation in the quark nugget model of dark matter

We revisit the properties of positron cloud in quark nugget (QN) model of dark matter (DM). In this model, dark matter particles are represented by compact composite objects composed of a large number of quarks or antiquarks with total baryon number B similar to 10(24). These particles have a very small number density in our galaxy which makes them dark to all DM detection experiments and cosmological observations. In this scenario, antiquark nuggets play special role because they may manifest themselves in annihilation with visible matter. We study electron-positron annihilation in collisions of free electrons, hydrogen and helium gases with the positron cloud of antiquark nuggets. We show that a strong electric field of antiquark nuggets destroys positronium, hydrogen and helium atoms and prevents electrons from penetrating deeply in positron cloud, thus reducing the probability of the electron-positron annihilation by nearly five orders of magnitude. Therefore, electron annihilation in the positron cloud of QNs cannot explain the observed by SPI/INTEGRAL detector photons with energy 511 keV in the center of our galaxy. These photons may be explained by a different mechanism in which QN captures protons which annihilate with antiquarks in the quark core or transform to neutrons thus reducing the QN core charge and increasing QN temperature. As a result QN loses positrons to space which annihilate with electrons there. Even more positrons are produced from charged pions resulting from the proton annihilation. Another manifestation may be emission of photons from pi(0) decays.

Automated summary

In the quark nugget model, the special role of antiquark nuggets leads to the study of positron clouds in dark matter. However, the strong electric field of antiquark nuggets significantly reduces the probability of electron-positron annihilation, which is insufficient to explain the observed photons in the center of our galaxy.