On The Origin Of The Gamma Rays From The Galactic Center

TL;DR

This study analyzes three years of Fermi telescope data to characterize gamma-ray emission from the Galactic Center, finding evidence of extended emission that could be linked to dark matter annihilation or cosmic ray interactions.

Contribution

The paper provides new analysis of gamma-ray morphology and spectrum from the Galactic Center using Pass 7 ultraclean data, supporting dark matter or cosmic ray origins.

Findings

Evidence of spatially extended gamma-ray emission

Emission spectrum favors dark matter particles of 7-12 GeV or 25-45 GeV

Dark matter annihilation cross section consistent with cosmological observations

Abstract

The region surrounding the center of the Milky Way is both astrophysically rich and complex, and is predicted to contain very high densities of dark matter. Utilizing three years of data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope (and the recently available Pass 7 ultraclean event class), we study the morphology and spectrum of the gamma ray emission from this region and find evidence of a spatially extended component which peaks at energies between 300 MeV and 10 GeV. We compare our results to those reported by other groups and find good agreement. The extended emission could potentially originate from either the annihilations of dark matter particles in the inner galaxy, or from the collisions of high energy protons that are accelerated by the Milky Way's supermassive black hole with gas. If interpreted as dark matter annihilation products, the emission spectrum favors dark matter particles with a mass in the range of 7-12 GeV (if annihilating dominantly to leptons) or 25-45 GeV (if annihilating dominantly to hadronic final states). The intensity of the emission corresponds to a dark matter annihilation cross section consistent with that required to generate the observed cosmological abundance in the early universe (sigma v ~ 3 x 10^-26 cm^3/s). We also present conservative limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section which are at least as stringent as those derived from other observations.