Detecting Dark Matter annihilation lines with Fermi
Abstract
Dark matter constitutes one of the most intriguing but so far unresolved issues in physics today. In many extensions of the Standard Model the existence of a stable Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is predicted. The WIMP is an excellent dark matter particle candidate and one of the most interesting scenarios include an annihilation of two WIMPs into two gamma-rays. If the WIMPs are assumed to be non-relativistic, the resulting photons will both have an energy equal to the mass of the WIMP and manifest themselves as a monochromatic spectral line in the energy spectrum. This type of signal would represent a "smoking gun" for dark matter, since no other known astrophysical process should be able to produce it. In these proceedings we give an overview of the different approaches to a search for dark matter lines that the Fermi-LAT collaboration is pursuing and the various challenges involved.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0812.2853,
title = {Detecting Dark Matter annihilation lines with Fermi},
author = {Tomi Ylinen and Yvonne Edmonds and Elliott D. Bloom and Jan Conrad},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0812.2853},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Identification of Dark Matter conference (IDM 2008), Stockholm, Sweden, 18-22 August, 2008