Overcoming gamma ray constraints with annihilating dark matter in Milky Way subhalos

We reconsider Sommerfeld-enhanced annihilation of dark matter (DM) into leptons to explain PAMELA and Fermi electron and positron observations, in light of possible new effects from substructure. There is strong tension between getting a large enough lepton signal while respecting constraints on the fluxes of associated gamma rays; we show how DM annihilations within subhalos can get around these constraints. Specifically, if most of the observed lepton excess comes from annihilations in a nearby (within 2 kpc) subhalo along a line of sight toward the galactic center, it is possible to match both the lepton and gamma ray observations. We demonstrate that this can be achieved in a simple class of particle physics models in which the DM annihilates via a hidden leptophilic U(1) vector boson, with explicitly computed Sommerfeld enhancement factors. Gamma ray constraints on the main halo annihilations (and cosmic microwave background constraints from the era of decoupling) require the annihilating component of the DM to be subdominant, of order ${10}^{-2}–{10}^{-3}$ of the total DM density. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.123519 © 2010 The American Physical Society