Dark Matter Searches with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

TL;DR

The paper discusses the capabilities of the Fermi Large Area Telescope in detecting gamma-ray signals that could indicate the presence of dark matter, focusing on various astrophysical regions including the galactic center.

Contribution

It evaluates the potential of the Fermi LAT to detect dark matter signals through gamma-ray observations in multiple astrophysical regions, especially the galactic center.

Findings

Fermi LAT has excellent potential to detect dark matter signals.

Multiple search regions enhance detection prospects.

Focus on the galactic center for dark matter annihilation signals.

Abstract

The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, successfully launched on June 11th, 2008, is the next generation satellite experiment for high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. The main instrument, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), with a wide field of view (> 2 sr), a large effective area (> 8000 cm2 at 1 GeV), sub-arcminute source localization, a large energy range (20 MeV - 300 GeV) and a good energy resolution (close to 8% at 1 GeV), has excellent potential to either discover or to constrain a Dark Matter signal. The Fermi LAT team pursues complementary searches for signatures of particle Dark Matter in different search regions such as the galactic center, galactic satellites and subhalos, the milky way halo, extragalactic regions as well as the search for spectral lines. In these proceedings we examine the potential of the LAT to detect gamma-rays coming from Weakly Interacting Massive Particle annihilations in these regions with special focus on the galactic center region.