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

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 \(\lesssim M_{\chi} \lesssim\) 100 TeV), a mass range accessible with curren...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-02
Main Authors: Acharyya, A, Archer, A, Bangale, P, Bartkoske, J T, Batista, P, Baumgart, M, Benbow, W, Buckley, J H, Falcone, A, Feng, Q, Finley, J P, Foote, G M, tson, L, Furniss, A, Gallagher, G, Hanlon, W F, Hervet, O, Hoang, J, Holder, J, Humensky, T B, Jin, W, Kaaret, P, Kertzman, M, Kherlakian, M, Kieda, D, Kleiner, T K, Korzoun, N, Krennrich, F, Lang, M J, Lundy, M, Maier, G, McGrath, C E, Moriarty, P, O'Brien, S, Ong, R A, Pfrang, K, Pohl, M, Pueschel, E, Quinn, J, Ragan, K, Reynolds, P T, Roache, E, Rodd, N L, Ryan, J L, Sadeh, I, Saha, L, Santander, M, Sembroski, G H, Shang, R, Splettstoesser, M, Tak, D, Tucci, J V, Vassiliev, V V, Williams, D A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dark matter
Dwarf galaxies
Gamma rays
Spheroidal galaxies
Telescopes
Weakly interacting massive particles
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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 \(\lesssim M_{\chi} \lesssim\) 100 TeV), a mass range accessible with current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. As ultraheavy dark matter (UHDM; \(M_{\chi} \gtrsim\) 100 TeV) has been suggested as an under-explored 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 gamma-ray observatory. With 216 hours of observations of four dwarf spheroidal galaxies, we perform an unbinned likelihood analysis. We find no evidence of a \(\gamma\)-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.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2302.08784