Ph D Thesis: Dark Matter searches targeting Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
by
Maja Garde Lindholm(Stockholm University, Department of Physics)
→
Europe/Stockholm
FB53
FB53
Description
In this thesis I present our recent work on gamma-ray searches for dark matter with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
(Fermi-LAT). We have targeted dwarf spheroidal galaxies since they are very dark matter dominated systems, and we have
developed a novel joint likelihood method to combine the observations of a set of targets.
In the first iteration of the joint likelihood analysis, 10 dwarf spheroidal galaxies are targeted and 2 years of Fermi-LAT
data is analyzed. The resulting upper limits on the dark matter annihilation cross-section range from about 10−26 cm3 s−1
for dark matter masses of 5 GeV to about 5 × 10−23 cm3 s−1 for dark matter masses of 1 TeV, depending on the annihilation
channel. For the first time, dark matter models with a cross section above the canonical thermal relic cross section (~3 ×
10−26 cm3 s−1) are strongly disfavored by a gamma-ray experiment. In the second iteration we include 15 dwarf spheroidal
galaxies in the combined analysis, employ 4 years of data and an improved calculation of the dark matter density. The
obtained upper limits range from about 10−26 cm3 s−1 for dark matter masses of 2 GeV to about 10−21 cm3 s−1 for dark matter
masses of 10 TeV, depending on the annihilation channel.
I briefly describe some of the evidence for dark matter, the Fermi-LAT instrument and public data releases, dwarf
spheroidal galaxies, likelihood analysis, and results from analyses of Fermi-LAT data. I also document some of the tests
made to verify the method and to compare different analysis setups.