Searching For Dark Matter Annihilation In The Smith High-Velocity Cloud
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Pontificia Univ. Catolica de Chile, Santiago (Chile); Inst. Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Rome (Italy)
- Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
- Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Recent observations suggest that some high-velocity clouds may be confined by massive dark matter halos. In particular, the proximity and proposed dark matter content of the Smith Cloud make it a tempting target for the indirect detection of dark matter annihilation. We argue that the Smith Cloud may be a better target than some Milky Way dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies and use γ-ray observations from the Fermi Large Area Telescope to search for a dark matter annihilation signal. No significant γ-ray excess is found coincident with the Smith Cloud, and we set strong limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section assuming a spatially extended dark matter profile consistent with dynamical modeling of the Smith Cloud. Notably, these limits exclude the canonical thermal relic cross section (~3 × 10-26 cm3 s-1) for dark matter masses . 30 GeV annihilating via the b¯b or τ⁺τ⁻ channels for certain assumptions of the dark matter density profile; however, uncertainties in the dark matter content of the Smith Cloud may significantly weaken these constraints.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1356466
- Journal Information:
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 790, Issue 1; ISSN 0004-637X
- Publisher:
- Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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