Search for gamma-ray spectral lines with the Fermi Large Area Telescope and dark matter implications

Ackermann M, Ajello M, Albert A, Allafort A, Baldini L, Barbiellini G, Bastieri D, Bechtol K, Bellazzini R, Bissaldi E, Bloom ED, Bonamente E, Bottacini E, Brandt TJ, Bregeon J, Brigida M, Bruel P, Buehler R, Buson S, Caliandro GA, Cameron RA, Caraveo PA, Casandjian JM, Cecchi C, Charles E, Chaves RCG, Chekhtman A, Chiang J, Ciprini S, Claus R, Cohen-Tanugi J, Conrad J, Cutini S, D'Ammando F, de Angelis A, de Palma F, Dermer CD, Digel SW, Di Venere L, Drell PS, Drlica-Wagner A, Essig R, Favuzzi C, Fegan SJ, Ferrara EC, Focke WB, Franckowiak A, Fukazawa Y, Funk S, Fusco P, Gargano F, Gasparrini D, Germani S, Giglietto N, Giordano F, Giroletti M, Glanzman T, Godfrey G, Gomez-Vargas GA, Grenier IA, Guiriec S, Gustafsson M, Hadasch D, Hayashida M, Hill AB, Horan D, Hou X, Hughes RE, Inoue Y, Izaguirre E, Jogler T, Kamae T, Knoedlseder J, Kuss M, Lande J, Larsson S, Latronico L, Longo F, Loparco F, Lovellette MN, Lubrano P, Malyshev D, Mayer M, Mazziotta MN, McEnery JE, Michelson PF, Mitthumsiri W, Mizuno T, Moiseev AA, Monzani ME, Morselli A, Moskalenko IV, Murgia S, Nakamori T, Nemmen R, Nuss E, Ohsugi T, Okumura A, Omodei N, Orienti M, Orlando E, Ormes JF, Paneque D, Perkins JS, Pesce-Rollins M, Piron F, Pivato G, Raino S, Rando R, Razzano M, Razzaque S, Reimer A, Reimer O, Romani RW, Sanchez-Conde M, Schulz A, Sgro C, Siegal-Gaskins J, Siskind EJ, Snyder A, Spandre G, Spinelli P, Suson DJ, Tajima H, Takahashi H, Thayer JG, Thayer JB, Tibaldo L, Tinivella M, Tosti G, Troja E, Uchiyama Y, Usher TL, Vandenbroucke J, Vasileiou V, Vianello G, Vitale V, Winer BL, Wood KS, Wood M, Yang Z, Zaharijas G, Zimmer S (2013)

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2013

Journal

Publisher: American Physical Society

Book Volume: 88

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.88.082002

Abstract

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a theoretical class of particles that are excellent dark matter candidates. WIMP annihilation or decay may produce essentially monochromatic gamma rays detectable by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) against the astrophysical gamma-ray emission of the Galaxy. We have searched for spectral lines in the energy range 5-300 GeV using 3.7 years of data, reprocessed with updated instrument calibrations and an improved energy dispersion model compared to the previous Fermi-LAT Collaboration line searches. We searched in five regions selected to optimize sensitivity to different theoretically motivated dark matter density distributions. We did not find any globally significant lines in our a priori search regions and present 95% confidence limits for annihilation cross sections of self-conjugate WIMPs and decay lifetimes. Our most significant fit occurred at 133 GeV in our smallest search region and had a local significance of 3.3 standard deviations, which translates to a global significance of 1.5 standard deviations. We discuss potential systematic effects in this search, and examine the feature at 133 GeV in detail. We find that the use both of reprocessed data and of additional

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

Stanford University United States (USA) (US) Institut de Ciències de l'Espai (ICE) Spain (ES) Ohio State University United States (USA) (US) University of Udine / Università degli Studi di Udine Italy (IT) École Polytechnique - Université Paris-Saclay France (FR) Hiroshima University Japan (JP) National Institute for Nuclear Physics / Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) Italy (IT) Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) / Free University of Brussels Belgium (BE) Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck / University of Innsbruck Austria (AT) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) United States (USA) (US) Politecnico di Bari Italy (IT) Université Bordeaux 1, Sciences et Technologies France (FR) Stockholm University / Stockholms universitet Sweden (SE) California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States (USA) (US) University of Johannesburg South Africa (ZA) University of Montpellier / Université Montpellier France (FR) Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY Germany (DE) University of Padua / Universita degli Studi di Padova Italy (IT) National Center for Scientific Research / Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) France (FR) U.S. Naval Research Laboratory United States (USA) (US) NYCB Real-Time Computing, Inc. United States (USA) (US) Italian Space Agency / Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) Italy (IT) University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot / Université Paris VII Denis Diderot France (FR) University of California, Berkeley United States (USA) (US) University of Pisa / Università di Pisa (UniPi) Italy (IT) University of Denver United States (USA) (US) Purdue University Northwest / Purdue University Calumet United States (USA) (US) National Institute for Astrophysics / Istituto Nazionale Astrofisica (INAF) Italy (IT) George Mason University United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Ackermann, M., Ajello, M., Albert, A., Allafort, A., Baldini, L., Barbiellini, G.,... Zimmer, S. (2013). Search for gamma-ray spectral lines with the Fermi Large Area Telescope and dark matter implications. Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology, 88. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.88.082002

MLA:

Ackermann, M., et al. "Search for gamma-ray spectral lines with the Fermi Large Area Telescope and dark matter implications." Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology 88 (2013).

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