New signature of dark matter annihilations: Gamma rays from intermediate-mass black holes
- Particle Astrophysics Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510-0500 (United States)
- Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States)
- Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)
We study the prospects for detecting gamma rays from dark matter (DM) annihilations in enhancements of the DM density (mini-spikes) around intermediate-mass black holes (IMBH) with masses in the range 10{sup 2} < or approx. M/M{sub {center_dot}} < or approx. 10{sup 6}. Focusing on two different IMBH formation scenarios, we show that, for typical values of mass and cross section of common DM candidates, mini-spikes, produced by the adiabatic growth of DM around pregalactic IMBHs, would be bright sources of gamma rays, which could be easily detected with large field-of-view gamma-ray experiments such as GLAST, and further studied with smaller field-of-view, larger-area experiments like Air Cherenkov Telescopes CANGAROO, HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS. The detection of many gamma-ray sources not associated with a luminous component of the Local Group, and with identical cutoffs in their energy spectra at the mass of the DM particle, would provide a potential smoking-gun signature of DM annihilations and shed new light on the nature of intermediate and supermassive black holes.
- OSTI ID:
- 20711544
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 72, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.72.103517; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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