EGRET Excess of diffuse Galactic Gamma Rays interpreted as a Signal of Dark Matter Annihilation

Abstract

Elsaesser and Mannheim fit a contribution of Dark Matter Annihilation (DMA) to the extragalactic contribution of the galactic diffuse gamma ray flux, as deduced from the EGRET data by Strong, Moskalenko and Reimer.They find a WIMP mass of 515{+110}{-75} GeV and quote a systematic error of 30\%. However, they do not include large systematic uncertainties from the fact that the determination of the extragalactic flux (EGF) requires a model for the subtraction of the Galactic flux from the data.The data used were obtained with a model without Galactic DM, so one expects additional uncertainty in the region where DMA contributes. Including a Galactic DMA contribution reduces the significance and the WIMP mass. The latter then becomes compatible with the Galactic excess of diffuse gamma rays, which posseses all the properties of DMA with a much higher significance than the extragalactic excess.

1 page, 1 figure, comment on paper by Elsaesser and Mannheim, titled Supersymmetric Dark Matter and the Extragalactic Gamma Ray Background

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