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Search for Ultraheavy Dark Matter from Observations of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with VERITAS

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
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  1. Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (United States)
  2. DePauw University, Greencastle, IN (United States)
  3. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
  4. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
  5. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Zeuthen (Germany)
  6. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
  7. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  8. Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO (United States)
  9. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
  10. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
  11. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
  12. California State Univ., East Bay, Hayward, CA (United States)
  13. Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN (United States)
  14. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics
  15. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  16. Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (United States)
  17. Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
  18. University of Galway (Ireland)
  19. McGill Univ., Montreal, QC (Canada)
  20. University College Dublin (Ireland)
  21. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  22. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Zeuthen (Germany); Univ. of Potsdam (Germany)
  23. Munster Technological Univ., Bishopstown, Cork (Ireland)
  24. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland)
  25. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Zeuthen (Germany); Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of)
  26. Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Dark matter is a key piece of the current cosmological scenario, with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) a leading dark matter candidate. WIMPs have not been detected in their conventional parameter space (100 GeV ≲Mχ ≲ 100 TeV), a mass range accessible with current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. As ultraheavy dark matter (UHDM; Mχ ≳ 100 TeV) has been suggested as an underexplored alternative to the WIMP paradigm, we search for an indirect dark matter annihilation signal in a higher mass range (up to 30 PeV) with the VERITAS γ-ray observatory. With 216 hr of observations of four dwarf spheroidal galaxies, we perform an unbinned likelihood analysis. We find no evidence of a γ-ray signal from UHDM annihilation above the background fluctuation for any individual dwarf galaxy nor for a joint-fit analysis, and consequently constrain the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section of UHDM for dark matter particle masses between 1 TeV and 30 PeV. We additionally set constraints on the allowed radius of a composite UHDM particle.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; SC0019470
OSTI ID:
2396857
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 945; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Figures / Tables (8)

Table 1(p. 3)table Table 1
Figure 1(p. 4)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 5)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 6)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 6)figure Figure 4
Figure 5(p. 7)figure Figure 5
Figure 6(p. 8)figure Figure 6
Figure 7(p. 9)figure Figure 7

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
dark matter
dwarf spheroidal galaxies
gamma-ray astronomy
high energy astrophysics