Search for Dark Matter Satellites Using FERMI-LAT

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-10-2012

Abstract

Numerical simulations based on the ΛCDM model of cosmology predict a large number of as yet unobserved Galactic dark matter satellites.We report the results of a Large Area Telescope (LAT) search for these satellites via the γ-ray emission expected from the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Some dark matter satellites are expected to have hard γ-ray spectra, finite angular extents, and a lack of counterparts at other wavelengths. We sought to identify LAT sources with these characteristics, focusing on γ-ray spectra consistent with WIMP annihilation through the b¯b channel. We found no viable dark matter satellite candidates using one year of data, and we present a framework for interpreting this result in the context of numerical simulations to constrain the velocity-averaged annihilation cross section for a conventional 100 GeVWIMP annihilating through the b¯b channel.

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