Neutralinos and the origin of radio halos in clusters of galaxies

We assume that the supersymmetric lightest neutralino is a good candidate for the cold dark matter in the galaxy halo and explore the possibility to produce extended diffuse radio emission from high-energy electrons arising from the neutralino annihilation in galaxy clusters whose intracluster medium is filled with a large-scale magnetic field. We show that these electrons Dt the population of seed relativistic electrons that is postulated in many models for the origin of cluster radio halos. For a uniform magnetic field of approximate to1-3 muG the population of seed relativistic electrons from neutralino annihilation can Dt the radio halo spectra of two well-studied clusters: Coma and 1E 0657-56. In the case of a magnetic field that is radially decreasing from the cluster center, central values approximate to8 mu \G (for Coma) and approximate to 50 muG (for 1E 0657-56) are required to fit the data. The radio halo data strongly favor a centrally peaked dark matter density profile (like a Navarro, Frenk, & White [NFW97] density profile). The shape and the frequency extension of the radio halo spectra are connected with the mass and physical composition of the neutralino. A pure gaugino neutralino with mass M chi greater than or equal to 80 GeV can reasonably fit the radio halo spectra of both Coma and 1E 0657-56. The model we present here provides a number of extra predictions that make it definitely testable. On the one hand, it agrees quite well with the observations that (1) the radio halo is centered on the cluster dynamical center, usually coincident with the center of its X-ray emission; (2) the radio halo surface brightness is similar to the X-ray one; and (3) the monochromatic radio luminosity at 1.4 GHz correlates strongly with the intracluster (IC) gas temperature. On the other hand, the same model predicts that radio halos should be present in every cluster, which is not presently observed, although the predicted radio halo luminosities can change (decrease) by factors of up to similar to 10(2)-10(6), depending on the amplitude and the structure of the IC magnetic field. In addition, neutral pions arising from neutralino annihilation should give rise to substantial amounts of diffuse gamma-ray emission, up to energies of order M chi, that could be tested by the next-generation gamma-ray experiments.