Estimate for GLAST LAT Milky Way Dark Matter WIMP Line Sensitivity

Journal Article · Thu Jul 12 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2757428· OSTI ID:21067292

Edmonds, Y; Baltz, E; Bloom, E; Cohen-Tanugi, J; Godfrey, G; Wai, L; Wang, P ^[1]; Scargle, J ^[2]; Conrad, J ^[3]

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1. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (United States)
2. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, California 94035 (United States)
3. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), AlbaNova University Centre, SE-10691 Stockholm (Sweden)

The LAT Dark Matter and New Physics Working group has been developing approaches for the indirect astrophysical detection of annihilation of dark matter. Our work has assumed that a significant component of dark matter is a new type of Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP). The annihilation of two WIMPs usually results in the production of many high energy gamma rays (>1 GeV) that can be well measured in the GLAST LAT if present. There is also the possibility to observe {gamma} lines from annihilation into {gamma}{gamma} and or {gamma}Z final states. In popular SUSY theories these line decays occur at the 10-4 to 10-2 branching fraction level. Estimates of LAT sensitivity (at 5{sigma} above background) and upper limits (upper limit at the 95% confidence level) to these WIMP lines will be presented. These sensitivities are given in photons/cm2/sec/sr and so do not depend on the WIMP models. However, they do depend on the diffuse background model. The latter is derived from GALPROP based on EGRET and other data in the EGRET energy range. We use extrapolations, provided by the GALPROP team to the higher energy range of 150 GeV explored in the preliminary line sensitivity study presented here. Comparison with theory depends upon the WIMP model (e.g., line energy and 1 or 2 hues), the DM halo model, and other astrophysics backgrounds. Thus estimates of the ability of the LAT to actually observe WIMP lines can vary over orders of magnitude depending upon which models are chosen.

• OSTI ID: 21067292
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 921; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ANNIHILATION
ASTROPHYSICS
BRANCHING RATIO
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EXTRAPOLATION
GAMMA DETECTION
GAMMA RADIATION
GEV RANGE
MILKY WAY
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PARTICLE DECAY
PARTICLE IDENTIFICATION
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
SENSITIVITY
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
SUPERSYMMETRY
WEAK INTERACTIONS
Z NEUTRAL BOSONS