Improved Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation Search from Dwarf Galaxies with HAWC

TL;DR

This study uses the HAWC observatory to search for dark matter signals from dwarf galaxies, improving sensitivity through enhanced data analysis and expanding the scope of the search, but finds no evidence of dark matter detection.

Contribution

The paper introduces improved analysis techniques and expands the dataset for dark matter searches in dwarf galaxies using HAWC, setting new upper limits on annihilation cross-sections.

Findings

No evidence of dark matter signals detected in dwarf galaxies.

Set upper limits on dark matter annihilation cross-section around 10^{-23} cm^3/s.

Enhanced sensitivity compared to previous HAWC studies.

Abstract

Understanding dark matter's elusive nature is crucial for the framework of particle physics and expanding the Standard Model. This analysis utilizes the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma ray Observatory to indirectly search for dark matter (DM) by studying gamma ray emission from dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). Selected for their high ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter, dSphs are useful for this type of search owing to the low background emission. In comparison to previous HAWC studies, we significantly improve our sensitivity to DM from dSphs due to improvements to our event reconstruction and reduced hadronic contamination. We expanded the number of dSphs studied, DM annihilation channels into the Standard Model (SM), and the amount of data collected on each previously studied dSph. We searched for DM signals in each dSph using the latest version of the algorithms used to reconstruct data from the primary detector of the HAWC instrument. We report that we do not detect evidence of DM from dSphs, so we place upper limits for the velocity-weighted DM annihilation cross-section ($\langle\sigma v \rangle$) on the order of $10^{-23}~\text{cm}^3\text{s}^{-1}$ for a DM mass range of $1-10^4$ TeV.