The BESS-Polar collaboration has recently performed a precise measurement of the local antiproton flux which is consistent with a pure secondary production of antiprotons. We constrain a possible primary component originating from dark matter pair-annihilations. We derive limits on the annihilation cross section which are stronger than or comparable to those from the PAMELA satellite experiment for dark matter masses up to 200 GeV. Especially, we exclude thermal WIMPs with masses in the range 3–20 GeV if they annihilate dominantly into quark pairs unless their cross section is velocity suppressed.

• Received 26 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.123522