Cold dark matter (DM) models for structure formation predict that DM subhalos are present in the Galaxy. In the standard paradigm of DM as weakly interacting massive particle, subhalos are expected to shine in gamma rays and to provide a signal detectable with current instruments, notably with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi~satellite. This is the main motivation behind searches for DM signals towards dwarf spheroidal galaxies and unidentified Fermi-LAT sources. A significant angular extension detected from unassociated sources located at relatively high latitudes is considered a "smoking gun" signature for identifying DM subhalos. In the present work, we systematically explore, by means of state-of-the-art models of cold DM halos in the Galaxy, the detectability of extended subhalos with Fermi-LAT. We simulate a DM signal exploring different assumptions of subhalos distribution in the Galaxy and DM profile, and reconstruct its flux through a realistic Fermi-LAT analysis pipeline. In the most optimistic case, we show that a detection of extended DM subhalos can be made for annihilation cross sections higher than $3 \times 10^{-26}$ cm$^3$/s (for a 100 GeV DM mass), still compatible with existing gamma-ray constraints, and that, in this case, the preference for extension of the source (vs point-like hypothesis) is significant. For fainter signals, instead, halos not only do not show significant extension, but they are not even detectable significantly as point-like sources.
Cold dark matter subhalos are expected to populate galaxies in numbers. If dark matter self-annihilates, these objects turn into prime targets for indirect searches, in particular with gamma-ray telescopes. Incidentally, the Fermi-LAT catalog already contains many unidentified sources that might be associated with subhalos. In this paper, we determine the probability for subhalos to be identified as gamma-ray pointlike sources from their predicted distribution properties. We use a semi-analytical model for the Galactic subhalo population, which, in contrast to cosmological simulations, can be …
Dark matter annihilations taking place in nearby subhalos could appear as gamma-ray sources without detectable counterparts at other wavelengths. In this study, we consider the collection of unassociated gamma-ray sources reported by the Fermi Collaboration in an effort to identify the most promising dark matter subhalo candidates. While we identify 24 bright, high-latitude, non-variable sources with spectra that are consistent with being generated by the annihilations of ~20-70 GeV dark matter particles (assuming annihilations to $b\bar{b}$), it is not possible at this time to distinguish the…
In this work, we simulate a set of realizations of local volume dark matter subhalo population based on the distributions and relations derived from Via Lactea II N-body simulation. We calculate the J-factors of these subhalos, and find that the low mass subhalos contribute a lot to the total J-factors. Combining with 91 months of the Fermi LAT observation, we constrain on the cross section of dark matter annihilating directly to two gamma rays. This is the first work combining numerical simulation results and Fermi LAT observations to constrain dark matter cross section to gamma-ray line with…
Searches for "dark" subhaloes in gamma-ray point-like source catalogues are among promising strategies for indirect dark matter detection. Such a search is nevertheless affected by uncertainties related, on the one hand, to the modelling of the dark matter subhalo distribution in Milky-Way-like galaxies, and, on the other hand, to the sensitivity of gamma-ray instruments to the dark matter subhalo signals. In the present work, we assess the detectability of dark matter subhaloes in Fermi-LAT catalogues, taking into accounts uncertainties associated with the modelling of the Galactic subhalo po…
If dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), dark matter subhalos in the Milky Way could be detectable as gamma-ray point sources due to WIMP annihilation. In this work, we perform an updated study of the detectability of dark matter subhalos as gamma-ray sources with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi LAT). We use the results of the Via Lactea II simulation, scaled to the Planck 2015 cosmological parameters, to predict the local dark matter subhalo distribution. Under optimistic assumptions for the WIMP parameters --- a 40 GeV particle annihilating to $b\bar{b}$…
The detection of dark matter subhalos without a stellar component in the Galactic halo remains a challenge. We use supervised machine learning to identify high-latitude gamma-ray sources with dark matter-like spectra among unassociated gamma-ray sources in the 4FGL-DR2. Out of 843 4FGL-DR2 unassociated sources at $|b| \geq 10\mathrm{^\circ}$, we select 73 dark matter subhalo candidates. Of the 69 covered by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (Swift), 17 show at least one X-ray source within the 95% LAT error ellipse and 52 where we identify no new sources. This latest inventory of dark subhalo…
Spatial extension has been hailed as a "smoking gun" in the gamma-ray search of dark galactic subhalos, which would appear as unidentified sources for gamma-ray telescopes. In this work, we study the sensitivity of the Fermi-LAT to extended subhalos using simulated data based on a realistic sky model. We simulate spatial templates for a set of representative subhalos, whose parameters were derived from our previous work with N-body cosmological simulation data. We find that detecting an extended subhalo and finding an unequivocal signal of angular extension requires, respectively, a flux 2 to …
Stringent Constraints On The Dark Matter Annihilation Cross Section From Subhalo Searches With The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope
银河系的暗物质晕被预测包含了非常大量的较小的次晕。由于暗物质湮灭发生在这样的物体内,最接近的大质量暗晕可能表现为点状或空间扩展的伽马射线源,在其他波长处没有可观测到的对应物。在本文中,我们使用宝瓶座模拟的结果来预测附近的subhalos的分布,并将其与费米伽马射线太空望远镜观测到的不明伽马射线源的特征进行比较。关注最亮的高纬度源,我们利用这种比较来推导出暗物质湮灭截面的极限。对于轻于~200 GeV的暗物质粒子,所得到的极限是迄今为止最强的,比矮星系或银河系中心的观测结果更为严格。我们还推导出独立的限制的基础上缺乏身份不明的伽马射线源与可辨别的空间扩展,但这些限制是一个因素的2-10弱于那些基于点状subhalos。最后,我们注意到10个最亮的高纬度源中有4个呈现出类似的光谱形状,这与30-60 GeV的暗物质粒子湮灭为b夸克相一致,湮灭截面的数量级为sigma v ~(5-10)x 10^-27 cm ^3/s,或8-10 GeV的暗物质粒子湮灭为τ,σ v ~(2.0-2.5)x 10^-27 cm ^3/s。
The distribution of dark matter in the Galaxy, according to state-of-the-art simulations, shows not only a smooth halo component but also a rich substructure where a hierarchy of dark matter subhalos of different masses is found. We present a search for potential dark matter subhalos in our Galaxy exploiting the high (HE, 100 MeV -- 100 GeV) and very-high-energy (VHE, >100 GeV) gamma-ray bands. We assume a scenario where the dark matter is composed of weakly interacting massive particles of mass over 100 GeV, and is capable of self-annihilation into standard model products. Under such a hypoth…
Search for dark matter subhalos among unassociated Fermi-LAT sources in presence of dataset shift
Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), University of Valencia and CSIC(瓦伦西亚大学与西班牙国家研究委员会粒子物理研究所);Department of Information Technology, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad San Pablo-CEU, CEU Universities(塞乌大学圣保罗高等理工学院信息技术系);Instituto de Física Teórica UAM-CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid(马德里自治大学与西班牙国家研究委员会理论物理研究所);Departamento de Física Teórica, M-15, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid(马德里自治大学理论物理系)
The substructures of the Galactic dark matter halo such as dark matter subhalos and dwarf galaxies have very low velocity dispersions, which makes them useful in constraining the scenario of Sommerfeld-enhanced dark matter annihilation. We calculate the velocity distribution of dark matter particles in dark matter halo substructures using the Eddington's formula with NFW density profile. We parametrize the effect of Sommerfeld enhancement of s-wave dark matter annihilation on the gamma-ray flux as the Sommerfeld-enhanced J-factors, and explicitly calculate their values for 15 known dwarf spher…
In many cosmologies dark matter clusters on sub-kiloparsec scales and forms compact subhalos, in which the majority of Galactic dark matter could reside. Null results in direct detection experiments since their advent four decades ago could then be the result of extremely rare encounters between the Earth and these subhalos. We investigate alternative and promising means to identify subhalo dark matter interacting with Standard Model particles: (1) subhalo collisions with old neutron stars can transfer kinetic energy and brighten the latter to luminosities within the reach of imminent infrared…
In this work, we study the potential of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) for the detection of Galactic dark matter (DM) subhalos. We focus on low-mass subhalos that do not host any baryonic content and therefore lack any multiwavelength counterpart. If the DM is made of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), these dark subhalos may thus appear in the gamma-ray sky as unidentified sources. A detailed characterization of the instrumental response of CTA to dark subhalos is performed, for which we use the {\it ctools} analysis software and simulate CTA observations under different array…
The distribution of dark matter (DM) subhalos in our Galaxy remains disputed, leading to varying $γ$-ray and $ν$ flux predictions from their annihilation or decay. In this work, we study how, in the inner Galaxy, subhalo tidal disruption from the Galactic baryonic potential impacts these signals. Based on state-of-the art modeling of this effect from numerical simulations and semi-analytical results, updated subhalo spatial distributions are derived and included in the CLUMPY code. The latter is used to produce a thousand realizations of the $γ$-ray and $ν$ sky. Compared to predictions based o…
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi satellite allows us to study the high-energy gamma-ray sky with unprecedented sensitivity. However, the origin of 31% of the detected gamma-ray sources remains unknown. This population of unassociated gamma-ray sources may contain new object classes, among them sources of photons from self-annihilating or decaying non-baryonic dark matter. Fermi-LAT might be capable to detect up to a few of these dark matter subhalos as faint and moderately extended gamma-ray sources with a temporally steady high-energy emission. After applying corresponding sele…
Fermi-LAT unidentified sources (unIDs) have proven to be compelling targets for performing indirect dark matter (DM) searches. In a previous work, we found that among the 1235 unIDs in Fermi-LAT catalogs (3FGL, 2FHL and 3FHL) only 44 of those are DM subhalos candidates. We now implement a spectral analysis to test whether these remaining sources are compatible or not with DM origin. This analysis is executed using almost 10 years of Pass 8 Fermi-LAT data. None of the unIDs are found to significantly prefer DM-induced emission compared to other, more conventional, astrophysical sources. In orde…
Strong Constraints on Line Signals from Dark Matter Annihilation in a Nearby Subhalo
Stockholm University(斯德哥尔摩大学);The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics(奥斯卡·克莱因宇宙粒子物理中心);Universidad Autónoma de Madrid(马德里自治大学);Instituto de Física Teórica UAM-CSIC(UAM-CSIC理论物理研究所)
Nearly 1/3 of the sources listed in the Third Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) catalog (3FGL) remain unassociated. It is possible that predicted and even unanticipated gamma-ray source classes are present in these data waiting to be discovered. Taking advantage of the excellent spectral capabilities achieved by the Fermi LAT, we use machine learning classifiers (Random Forest and XGBoost) to pinpoint potentially novel source classes in the unassociated 3FGL sample outside the Galactic plane. Here we report a total of 34 high-confidence Galactic candidates at |b| > 5 degrees. The currently favo…
N-body simulations predict that galaxies at the Milky Way scale host a large number of dark matter (DM) subhalos. Some of these subhalos, if they are massive enough or close enough to the Earth, might be detectable in $γ$ rays due to the DM annihilation. 3FGL J2212.5+0703, an unidentified gamma-ray source, has been suggested to be the counterpart candidate of a DM subhalo by Bertoni et al. (2015, 2016). In this work we analyze the Fermi-LAT Pass 8 data of 3FGL J2212.5+0703 to independently test the DM subhalo hypothesis of this source. In order to suppress the possible contamination from two n…
Searches for dark matter subhaloes with wide-field Cherenkov telescope surveys
在暗物质晕中存在子结构是冷暗物质范例的不可避免的结果。这些天体的间接信号已经用宇宙射线和伽马射线进行了广泛的研究。乍看起来,切伦科夫望远镜似乎不太适合这样的搜索,因为它们的视场很小,天空中可能的暗物质子结构位置也很随机。然而,只要有足够长的曝光时间和足够的观测策略,这种实验技术非常好的灵敏度使我们能够约束粒子暗物质模型。我们在这里面对HESS实验的灵敏度图,该实验是从他们的银河扫描调查到最先进的宇宙学N体模拟Via Lactea II建立的。我们在10^-24 - 10 ^-23 cm ^3 s ^-1水平上得到了湮灭截面的竞争约束。结果外推到未来的切伦科夫望远镜阵列,在银河平面调查和更广泛的河外调查的情况下。在后一种情况下,它表明,切伦科夫望远镜阵列的灵敏度将足以达到最自然的粒子暗物质模型。
One of the predictions of the $Λ$CDM cosmological framework is the hierarchical formation of structure, giving rise to dark matter (DM) halos and subhalos. When the latter are massive enough they retain gas (i.e., baryons) and become visible. This is the case of the dwarf satellite galaxies in the Milky Way (MW). Below a certain mass, halos may not accumulate significant amounts of baryons and remain completely dark. However, if DM particles are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), we expect them to annihilate in subhalos, producing gamma rays which can be detected with the Fermi sate…
Fermi-LAT Sensitivity to Dark Matter Annihilation in Via Lactea II Substructure
我们提出了一个费米伽马射线太空望远镜的能力,以检测暗物质湮灭信号的银河subhalos通过Lactea II N体模拟预测的研究。我们实现了一个改进的形式主义估计的升压因子需要考虑的影响,暗物质聚集的规模低于模拟的分辨率,我们将一个详细的蒙特卡罗模拟的响应费米-LAT望远镜,包括模拟其全天观测模式集成了十年的任务。我们发现,在速度平均截面为3*10^-26 cm ^3 s^-1的标准超对称模型中,对于质量高达150 GeV的WIMP,可以检测到一些具有大于5个标准差显著性的暗晕,并且可能与点源的外观有很大的偏差。
There is strong evidence about the existence of unknown dark matter in the Universe. Many different theories about this dark matter exist, but most probably it is made of a new kind of fundamental particle that has to be massive, stable, electrically neutral, and having only weak interaction with standard matter (weakly interacting massive particles). In principle, those particles could produce gamma rays by their annihilation or decay. Therefore, a Gamma-ray signal from a dark matter origin would provide one of the clearest and most concluding evidences for dark matter. High resolution cosmol…
An important open question today is the understanding of the relevance that dark matter (DM) halo substructure may have for DM searches. In the standard cosmological framework, subhalos are predicted to be largely abundant inside larger halos, i.e., galaxies like ours, and are thought to form first and later merge to form larger structures. Dwarf satellite galaxies -- the most massive exponents of halo substructure in our own galaxy -- are already known to be excellent targets and, indeed, they are constantly scrutinized by current gamma-ray experiments in their search for DM annihilation sign…
Milky Way-like galaxies are predicted to host a very large number of dark matter subhalos. Some massive and nearby subhalos could generate detectable gamma-rays, appearing as unidentified, spatially-extended and stable gamma-ray sources. We search for such sources in the third Fermi Large Area Telescope source List (3FGL) and report the identification of a new candidate, 3FGL J1924.8-1034. With the Fermi-LAT Pass 8 data, we find that 3FGL J1924.8-1034 is spatially-extended at a high confidence level of $5.4σ$, with a best-fit extension radius of $\sim0.15^{\circ}$. No significant variability h…
Cosmological N-body simulations show that Milky-Way-sized galaxies harbor a population of unmerged dark matter subhalos. These subhalos could shine in gamma rays and be eventually detected in gamma-ray surveys as unidentified sources. We search for very-high-energy (VHE, $E\geq 100$ GeV) gamma-ray emission using H.E.S.S. observations carried out from a thorough selection of unidentified Fermi-LAT Objects (UFOs) as dark matter subhalo candidates. Provided that the dark matter mass is higher than a few hundred GeV, the emission of the UFOs can be well described by dark matter annihilation models…
Measuring high energy cosmic ray electrons/positrons (CRE) provides important means for the dark matter (DM) indirect detection and for probing the nearby galactic sources. In this work, we perform a systematic analysis of the flavor structure of DM annihilations into charged leptons based on the cosmic ray CRE spectra measured by DAMPE, Fermi-LAT, AMS-02, and CALET experiments. We study the annihilations of possible TeV scale DM particles in a nearby subhalo, which is proposed to explain the possible peak-like structure of the DAMPE CRE data. We pay special attention to the possible non-reson…
In this work we study the constraints on dark matter (DM) annihilation/decay from the Fermi-LAT Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background (IGRB) observation. We consider the contributions from both extragalactic and galactic DM components. For DM annihilation, the evolutions of extragalactic DM halos are taken into account. We find that the IGRB constraints under some DM subhalo models can be comparable to those derived from the observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We also use the IGRB results to constrain the parameter regions accounting for the latest AMS-02 electron-positron anomaly. We find tha…
We use 10 years of publicly available IceCube data to investigate the correlations between high-energy neutrinos and various Fermi-LAT gamma-ray samples. This work considers the following gamma-ray samples: the third Fermi-LAT catalog of high-energy sources(3FHL), >100GeV Fermi-LAT events, LAT 12-year source catalog(4FGL), the fourth catalog of active galactic nuclei(4LAC) and subsets of these samples. For each sample, both a single-source analysis and a stacking analysis are performed. We find no indication that the sources in these samples produce significant high-energy neutrinos. From the …
Numerous extended sources around Galactic pulsars have shown significant $γ$-ray emission from GeV to TeV energies, revealing hundreds of TeV energy electrons scattering off of the underlying photon fields through inverse Compton scattering (ICS). HAWC TeV gamma-ray observations of few-degree extended emission around the pulsars Geminga and Monogem, and LAT GeV emission around Geminga, suggest that systems older than 100 kyr have multi-TeV $e^\pm$ propagating beyond the SNR-PWN system into the interstellar medium. Following the discovery of few $γ$-ray sources by HAWC at energies E$>100$~TeV, …
Statistical analyses are invaluable methods used to understand intrinsic emission processes and the unification of extragalactic radio sources. In this paper, we collected radio, X-ray and γ-ray data of blazars from the Fermi-LAT and Seyfert galaxies from the INTEGRAL survey and investigated the relationship between the emission properties of Seyfert galaxies and blazar subclasses of flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lac subclasses (BL Lacs). The results show from the average values that these objects follow a sequence that is indicative of probable Seyfert galaxies - BL Lacs - FSRQs …
We investigate the supernova remnant (SNR) 3C 397 and its neighboring pulsar PSR J1906+0722 in high energy gamma rays by using nearly six years of archival data of {\it Large Area Telescope} on board {\it Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope} (Fermi-LAT). The off-pulse analysis of gamma-ray flux from the location of PSR J1906+0722 reveals an excess emission which is found to be very close to the radio location of 3C 397. Here, we present the preliminary results of this gamma-ray analysis of 3C 397 and PSR J1906+0722.
We use joint observations by the Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) and the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows to investigate the nature of the long-lived high-energy emission observed by Fermi LAT. Joint broadband spectral modeling of XRT and LAT data reveal that LAT nondetections of bright X-ray afterglows are consistent with a cooling break in the inferred electron synchrotron spectrum below the LAT and/or XRT energy ranges. Such a break is sufficient to suppress the high-energy emission so as to be below the LAT detection threshold. By contrast, LAT-…
The $Λ$CDM cosmological framework predicts the existence of thousands of subhalos in our own Galaxy not massive enough to retain baryons and become visible. Yet, some of them may shine in gamma rays provided that the dark matter (DM) is made of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), that would self-annihilate and would appear as unidentified gamma-ray sources (unIDs) in gamma-ray catalogs. Indeed, unIDs have proven to be competitive targets for DM searches with gamma rays. In this work, we focus on the three high-latitude ($|b|\geq 10^\circ$) sources present in the 2HWC catalog of the H…
Gamma-ray is a good probe of dark matter (DM) particles in the Universe. We search for the DM annihilation signals in the direction of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) using 7.5 year Fermi-LAT pass 8 data. Similar to Pshirkov et al. (2016), we find that there is residual excess emission from the direction of M31 if only the galactic disk as traced by the far infrared emission is considered. Adding a point-like source will improve the fitting effectively, although additional slight improvements can be found if an extended component such as a uniform disk or two bubbles is added instead. Taking the fa…
PMN J1603$-$4904 is a likely member of the rare class of $γ$-ray emitting young radio galaxies. Only one other source, PKS 1718$-$649, has been confirmed so far. These objects, which may transition into larger radio galaxies, are a stepping stone to understanding AGN evolution. It is not completely clear how these young galaxies, seen edge-on, can produce high-energy $γ$-rays. PMN J1603$-$4904 has been detected by TANAMI Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations and has been followed-up with multiwavelength observations. A Fermi/LAT $γ$-ray source has been associated with it in the…