The Sensitivity of HAWC to High-Mass Dark Matter Annihilations
Abstract
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a wide field-of-view detector sensitive to gamma rays of 100 GeV to a few hundred TeV. Located in central Mexico at 19 degrees North latitude and 4100 m above sea level, HAWC will observe gamma rays and cosmic rays with an array of water Cherenkov detectors. The full HAWC array is scheduled to be operational in Spring 2015. In this paper, we study the HAWC sensitivity to the gamma-ray signatures of high-mass (multi- TeV) dark matter annihilation. The HAWC observatory will be sensitive to diverse searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from non-luminous dark matter subhalos. Here we consider the HAWC sensitivity to a subset of these sources, including dwarf galaxies, the M31 galaxy, the Virgo cluster, and the Galactic center. We simulate the HAWC response to gamma rays from these sources in several well-motivated dark matter annihilation channels. If no gamma-ray excess is observed, we show the limits HAWC can place on the dark matter cross-section from these sources. In particular, in the case of dark matter annihilation into gauge bosons, HAWC will be able to detect a narrow range of dark matter masses to cross-sections below thermal. HAWC should also be sensitive to non-thermal cross-sections for masses up to nearly 1000 TeV. The constraints placed by HAWC on the dark matter cross-section from known sources should be competitive with current limits in the mass range where HAWC has similar sensitivity. HAWC can additionally explore higher dark matter masses than are currently constrained.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1405.1730,
title = {The Sensitivity of HAWC to High-Mass Dark Matter Annihilations},
author = {A. U. Abeysekara and R. Alfaro and C. Alvarez and J. D. Alvarez and R. Arceo and J. C. Arteaga-Velazquez and H. A. Ayala Solares and A. S. Barber and B. M. Baughman and N. Bautista-Elivar and J. Becerra Gonzalez and E. Belmont and S. Y. BenZvi and D. Berley and M. Bonilla Rosales and J. Braun and R. A. Caballero-Lopez and K. S. Caballero-Mora and A. Carraminana and M. Castillo and U. Cotti and J. Cotzomi and E. de la Fuente and C. De Leon and T. DeYoung and R. Diaz Hernandez and L. Diaz-Cruz and J. C. Diaz-Velez and B. L. Dingus and M. A. DuVernois and R. W. Ellsworth and S. F. E. and D. W. Fiorino and N. Fraija and A. Galindo and F. Garfias and M. M. Gonzalez and J. A. Goodman and V. Grabski and M. Gussert and Z. Hampel-Arias and J. P. Harding and C. M. Hui and P. Huentemeyer and A. Imran and A. Iriarte and P. Karn and D. Kieda and G. J. Kunde and A. Lara and R. J. Lauer and W. H. Lee and D. Lennarz and H. Leon Vargas and E. C. Linares and J. T. Linnemann and M. Longo and R. Luna-Garcia and A. Marinelli and H. Martinez and O. Martinez and J. Martinez-Castro and J. A. J. Matthews and J. McEnery and E. Mendoza Torres and P. Miranda-Romagnoli and E. Moreno and M. Mostafa and L. Nellen and M. Newbold and R. Noriega-Papaqui and T. Oceguera-Becerra and B. Patricelli and R. Pelayo and E. G. Perez-Perez and J. Pretz and C. Riviere and D. Rosa-Gonzalez and J. Ryan and H. Salazar and F. Salesa and A. Sandoval and M. Schneider and S. Silich and G. Sinnis and A. J. Smith and K. Sparks Woodle and R. W. Springer and I. Taboada and P. A. Toale and K. Tollefson and I. Torres and T. N. Ukwatta and L. Villasenor and T. Weisgarber and S. Westerhoff and I. G. Wisher and J. Wood and G. B. Yodh and P. W. Younk and D. Zaborov and A. Zepeda and H. Zhou and K. N. Abazajian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.1730},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
15 pages, 4 figures, version to be published in PRD