Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay Searches with the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory
In order to observe annihilation and decay of dark matter, several types of potential sources should be considered. Some sources, such as dwarf galaxies, are expected to have very low astrophysical backgrounds but fairly small dark matter densities. Other sources, like the Galactic center, are expected to have larger densities of dark matter but also have more complicated backgrounds from other astrophysical sources. To search for signatures of dark matter, the large field-of-view of the HAWC detector, covering 2 sr at a time, especially enables searches from sources of dark matter annihilation and decay, which are extended over several degrees on the sky. With a sensitivity over 2/3 of the sky, HAWC has the ability to probe a large fraction of the sky for the signals of TeV-mass dark matter. In particular, HAWC should be the most sensitive experiment to signals coming from dark matter with masses greater than 10-100 TeV.We present the HAWC sensitivity to annihilating and decaying dark matter signals for several likely sources of these signals.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- Contributing Organization:
- HAWC Collaboration
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 1565839
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-15-25579; TRN: US2000904
- Journal Information:
- PoS - Proceedings of Science, Vol. 236; Conference: 34. International Cosmic Ray Conference, The Hague (Netherlands), 30 Jul - 6 Aug 2015; ISSN 1824-8039
- Publisher:
- SISSACopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Dark compact objects: An extensive overview
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journal | March 2019 |
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