Fermi LAT Search for Internal Bremsstrahlung Signatures from Dark Matter Annihilation

TL;DR

This paper searches for internal bremsstrahlung signatures in Fermi LAT data to detect dark matter annihilation signals, employing a new adaptive method to optimize target regions and setting stronger limits than previous methods, with a tentative hint of a potential signal around 150 GeV.

Contribution

It introduces a novel adaptive procedure for selecting target regions in gamma-ray data to improve dark matter signal detection sensitivity.

Findings

Stronger limits on dark matter annihilation cross-section than dwarf galaxy observations.

A weak 3.1σ indication of an internal bremsstrahlung-like signal at ~150 GeV.

Potential gamma-ray line at around 130 GeV fitting the same signal.

Abstract

A commonly encountered obstacle in indirect searches for galactic dark matter is how to disentangle possible signals from astrophysical backgrounds. Given that such signals are most likely subdominant, the search for pronounced spectral features plays a key role for indirect detection experiments; monochromatic gamma-ray lines or similar features related to internal bremsstrahlung, in particular, provide smoking gun signatures. We perform a dedicated search for the latter in the data taken by the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope during its first 43 months. To this end, we use a new adaptive procedure to select optimal target regions that takes into account both standard and contracted dark matter profiles. The behaviour of our statistical method is tested by a subsampling analysis of the full sky data and found to reproduce the theoretical expectations very well. The limits on the dark matter annihilation cross-section that we derive are stronger than what can be obtained from the observation of dwarf galaxies and, at least for the model considered here, collider searches. While these limits are still not quite strong enough to probe annihilation rates expected for thermally produced dark matter, future prospects to do so are very good. In fact, we already find a weak indication, with a significance of 3.1\sigma (4.3\sigma) when (not) taking into account the look-elsewhere effect, for an internal bremsstrahlung-like signal that would correspond to a dark matter mass of \sim150 GeV; the same signal is also well fitted by a gamma-ray line at around 130 GeV. Although this would be a fascinating possibility, we caution that a much more dedicated analysis and additional data will be necessary to rule out or confirm this option.