Searching for Spurious Solar and Sky Lines in the Fermi-LAT Spectrum

Abstract

We search for a unified instrumental explanation of the spectral features seen near $E_{\gamma }=130$ GeV in photons collected by Fermi-LAT from the galactic center and from the Earth's limb. We report for the first time a similar feature in photons originating from the vicinity of the Sun, and examine the instrumental characteristics of this Solar feature. To test an instrumental hypothesis, we identify the range of photon incident angles where most of the peak photons are observed in these three spectral features. An examination of the spectrum of photons from the rest of the sky with this characteristic angular range reveals a hint of a spectral feature near $E_{\gamma }=130$ GeV. These results cast further doubt on the dark-matter-annihilation interpretation of the galactic center peak.

7 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (4)

• A Tentative Gamma-Ray Line from Dark Matter Annihilation at the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Fermi-LAT Observations of Two Gamma-Ray Emission Components from the Quiescent Sun
• Fermi 130 GeV gamma-ray excess and dark matter annihilation in sub-haloes and in the Galactic centre
• Disentangling Instrumental Features of the 130 GeV Fermi Line

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• Re-Examining Astrophysical Constraints on the Dark Matter Model
• TASI 2014 Lectures: The Hunt for Dark Matter
• General calculation of the cross section for dark matter annihilations into two photons
• A Clustering Analysis of the Morphology of the 130 GeV Gamma-Ray Feature
• Gamma-ray line from radiative decay of gravitino dark matter
• Deconfinement of quark content in neutron stars due to cosmic external agents
• 130GeV gamma-ray line through axion conversion