Indirect dark matter searches with gamma rays: On Lines, Internal Bremsstrahlung and Galaxy Clusters

by Dr Christoph Weniger (Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, München)

Tuesday 31 Jan 2012, 13:15 → 13:15 Europe/Stockholm

FA32

Searches for signatures from dark matter annihilation or decay in the cosmic gamma-ray fluxes are plagued by the question of how to disentangle the astrophysical backgrounds from a potential dark matter signal. Fortunately, many dark matter models feature very sharp signatures in their gamma-ray energy spectrum, coming from monochromatic photons, final-state radiation or virtual internal bremsstrahlung processes. These features could appear above the continuous astrophysical backgrounds as clear "smoking-gun" signatures for dark matter. I will discuss in how far ongoing experiments like the Fermi LAT, or future Air Cherenkov Telescopes like the CTA, have the potential to discover these signatures. I will present limits on dark matter that follow already from the current Fermi LAT observations, and discuss implications for decaying gravitino dark matter. Lastly, I will present our recent search for extended gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters and the resulting limits on dark matter.