Have Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescopes Observed Dark Matter?

Abstract

Two ground-based experiments have recently independently detected TeV $\gamma$-rays from the direction of the Galactic center. The observations made by the VERITAS and CANGAROO collaborations are unexpected, although not impossible to interpret in terms of astrophysical sources. Here we examine in detail whether the observed $\gamma$-rays may arise from the more exotic alternative of annihilations of dark matter particles clustered in the center of the Galaxy.

19 pages, 7 figures

Cited by in corpus (36)

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• Observation of Gamma Rays from the Galactic Center with the MAGIC Telescope
• Neutrino Constraints on the Dark Matter Total Annihilation Cross Section
• Anisotropy of the cosmic gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation
• Neutralino annihilation into gamma-rays in the Milky Way and in external galaxies
• TeV gamma-rays and the largest masses and annihilation cross sections of neutralino dark matter
• Multi-wavelength signals of dark matter annihilations at the Galactic center
• Metastable Vacua in Flux Compactifications and Their Phenomenology
• Two photon annihilation of Kaluza-Klein dark matter
• The AGASA/SUGAR Anisotropies and TeV Gamma Rays from the Galactic Center: A Possible Signature of Extremely High-energy Neutrons
• Dark Matter and Gamma-Rays From Draco: MAGIC, GLAST and CACTUS
• Dynamical Cusp Regeneration
• Collisionally Regenerated Dark Matter Structures in Galactic Nuclei
• Can Dark Matter Annihilation Dominate the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background?
• Challenges in Detecting Gamma-Rays From Dark Matter Annihilations in the Galactic Center
• Extracting the Gamma Ray Signal from Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Center Region
• Determining the WIMP mass using the complementarity between direct and indirect searches and the ILC
• Adiabatic compression and indirect detection of supersymmetric dark matter
• Dark Matter and the CACTUS Gamma-Ray Excess from Draco
• Prospects For Detecting Dark Matter With GLAST In Light Of The WMAP Haze
• Simultaneous H.E.S.S. and Chandra observations of Sagittarius A* during an X-ray flare
• Dark matter annihilation from intermediate-mass black holes: Contribution to the extragalactic gamma-ray background
• Gamma rays from the Galactic Centre region: a review
• Impact of astrophysical processes on the gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilations
• Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking and Multi-TeV Gamma-Rays from the Galactic Center
• Study of the Gamma-ray Spectrum from the Galactic Center in view of Multi-TeV Dark Matter Candidates
• Gamma rays from the neutralino dark matter annihilations in the Milky Way substructures
• A Clustering Analysis of the Morphology of the 130 GeV Gamma-Ray Feature
• A comparison between the detection of gamma rays and positrons from neutralino annihilation
• Detecting the dark matter annihilation at the ground EAS detectors
• HESS J1745$-$290 spectrum explained by a transition in the diffusion regime of PeV cosmic rays in the Sgr A* accretion flow