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Reliability of Monte Carlo event generators for gamma-ray dark matter searches

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Abstract

We study the differences in the gamma-ray spectra simulated by four Monte Carlo event generator packages developed in particle physics. Two different versions of PYTHIA and two of HERWIG are analyzed, namely PYTHIA 6.418 and HERWIG 6.5.10 in Fortran and PYTHIA 8.165 and HERWIG 2.6.1 in C++. For all the studied channels, the intrinsic differences between them are shown to be significative and may play an important role in misunderstanding dark matter signals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física Teórica I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040, Madrid, Spain

    J. A. R. Cembranos, V. Gammaldi & A. L. Maroto

  2. Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio (ICE/CSIC) and Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), Campus UAB, Facultat de Ciències, Torre C5-Par-2a, 08193, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain

    A. de la Cruz-Dombriz

  3. Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre (ACGC) and Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

    A. de la Cruz-Dombriz

  4. Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de València), Apdo. 22085, E-46071, Valencia, Spain

    R. A. Lineros

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  1. J. A. R. Cembranos
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ArXiv ePrint: 1305.2124

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Cembranos, J.A.R., de la Cruz-Dombriz, A., Gammaldi, V. et al. Reliability of Monte Carlo event generators for gamma-ray dark matter searches. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013, 77 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2013)077

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