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  • Open Access

Constraining gravitational dark matter with LHAASO and Fermi-LAT

Basabendu Barman1,*, Arindam Das2,3,†, Prantik Sarmah4,‡, and Rakesh Kumar SivaKumar1,§

  • *Contact author: basabendu.b@srmap.edu.in
  • †Contact author: arindamdas@oia.hokudai.ac.jp
  • ‡Contact author: prantiksarmah@ihep.ac.cn
  • §Contact author: rakesh_sivakumar@srmap.edu.in
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023013 – Published 8 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/j6pw-vm1c

Abstract

We use diffuse Galactic high energy gamma ray data from LHAASO and Fermi-LAT to constrain gravitationally produced decaying dark matter (DM). Focusing on four benchmark candidates: a dark photon, a heavy right-handed neutrino (RHN), a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB), and a nonminimally coupled scalar we derive bounds on the DM mass and its couplings to the visible sector. For dark photons, RHNs, and pNGBs, the combined data constrain the effective interaction strength to ≲O(10−30) for DM masses ≳O(TeV). For the nonminimally coupled scalar, this interaction strength is limited to ≲O(10−10), for the same DM mass range. Moreover, photon-dark photon oscillations yield strong constraints for massive dark photon beyond 10 GeV, closing a region of parameter space previously left unconstrained.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023013– Published 8 July, 2026
  • Received 25 December 2025
  • Accepted 23 June 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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