The Dark Matter Programme of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

TL;DR

This paper discusses the Cherenkov Telescope Array's potential to advance indirect dark matter searches through its unprecedented sensitivity and coverage, aiming to detect annihilation or decay signatures.

Contribution

It presents the CTA's dark matter search program and highlights its expected capabilities and prospects for detecting dark matter signals.

Findings

CTA will observe the entire sky with high sensitivity.

The program aims to identify dark matter annihilation or decay signatures.

Unprecedented angular resolution enhances detection prospects.

Abstract

In the last decades a vaste amount of evidence for the existence of dark matter has been accumulated. At the same time, many efforts have been undertaken to try to identify what dark matter is. Indirect searches look at places in the Universe where dark matter is believed to be abundant and seek for possible annihilation or decay signatures. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) represents the next generation of imaging Cherenkov telescopes and, with one site in the Southern hemisphere and one in the Northern hemisphere, will be able to observe all the sky with unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution above a few tens of GeV. The CTA Consortium will undertake an ambitious program of indirect dark matter searches for which we report here the brightest prospects.