Are we really seeing dark matter signals from the Milky Way center?

TL;DR

This paper discusses the challenges in identifying dark matter signals from the Milky Way center due to complex gamma-ray backgrounds and emphasizes the importance of understanding background sources and uncertainties.

Contribution

It highlights the critical need for detailed background modeling to reliably detect or exclude dark matter signals in gamma-ray data.

Findings

Background uncertainties significantly affect dark matter signal interpretation.

Multiple groups have claimed potential dark matter detections.

Understanding gamma-ray sources is essential for signal disentanglement.

Abstract

The center of the Milky Way is one of the most interesting regions of the $\gamma$-ray sky because of the potential for indirect dark matter (DM) detection. It is also complicated due to the many sources and uncertainties associated with the diffuse $\gamma$-ray emission. Many independent groups have claimed a DM detection in the data collected by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi $\gamma$-ray Satellite from the inner Galaxy region at energies below 10 GeV. However, an exotic signal needs to be disentangled from the data using a model of known $\gamma$-ray emitters, i.e. a background model. We point out that deep understanding of background ingredients and their main uncertainties is of capital importance to disentangle a dark matter signal from the Galaxy center.