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Register a new userIs the gamma-ray emission around the Coma galaxy cluster a dark matter origin?
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Recently, gamma-ray emission in the direction of Coma, with a TS value of $sim 40$, has been reported. In this work we will discuss the possibility of such a residual emission coming from dark matter annihilation. Our results show that the gamma-ray emission within the Coma region is also spatially correlated to the mass distribution derived from weak gravitational lensing measurements very well. However the dark matter models are not supported by the spectral analysis results and constraints by observations of other targets. Thus we derive the upper limits of the dark matter annihilation cross section according to the observation of the Coma region.
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Galaxy clusters are one of the prime sites to search for dark matter (DM) annihilation signals. Depending on the substructure of the DM halo of a galaxy cluster and the cross sections for DM annihilation channels, these signals might be detectable by the latest generation of $gamma$-ray telescopes. Here we use three years of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data, which are the most suitable for searching for very extended emission in the vicinity of nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. Our analysis reveals statistically significant extended emission which can be well characterized by a uniformly emitting disk profile with a radius of 3deg that moreover is offset from the cluster center. We demonstrate that the significance of this extended emission strongly depends on the adopted interstellar emission model (IEM) and is most likely an artifact of our incomplete description of the IEM in this region. We also search for and find new point source candidates in the region. We then derive conservative upper limits on the velocity-averaged DM pair annihilation cross section from Virgo. We take into account the potential $gamma$-ray flux enhancement due to DM sub-halos and its complex morphology as a merging cluster. For DM annihilating into $boverline{b}$, assuming a conservative sub-halo model setup, we find limits that are between 1 and 1.5 orders of magnitude above the expectation from the thermal cross section for $m_{mathrm{DM}}lesssim100,mathrm{GeV}$. In a more optimistic scenario, we exclude $langle sigma v ranglesim3times10^{-26},mathrm{cm^{3},s^{-1}}$ for $m_{mathrm{DM}}lesssim40,mathrm{GeV}$ for the same channel. Finally, we derive upper limits on the $gamma$-ray-flux produced by hadronic cosmic-ray interactions in the inter cluster medium. We find that the volume-averaged cosmic-ray-to-thermal pressure ratio is less than $sim6%$.
47 Tuc was the first globular cluster observed to be $gamma$-ray bright, with the $gamma$-rays being attributed to a population of unresolved millisecond pulsars (MSPs). Recent kinematic data, combined with detailed simulations, appears to be consistent with the presence of an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) at the centre of 47 Tuc. Building upon this, we analyse 9 years of textit{Fermi}-LAT observations to study the spectral properties of 47 Tuc with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. This 9-year $gamma$-ray spectrum shows that 47 Tucs $gamma$-ray flux cannot be explained by MSPs alone, due to a systematic discrepancy between the predicted and observed flux. Rather, we find a significant preference (TS $=40$) for describing 47 Tucs spectrum with a two source population model, consisting of an ensemble of MSPs and annihilating dark matter (DM) with an enhanced density around the IMBH, when compared to an MSP-only explanation. The best-fit DM mass of 34 GeV is essentially the same as the best-fit DM explanation for the Galactic centre excess when assuming DM annihilation into $bbar{b}$ quarks. Our work constitutes the first possible evidence of dark matter within a globular cluster.
We explore two possible scenarios to explain the observed gamma-ray emission associated with the atypical globular cluster Omega-Centauri: emission from millisecond pulsars (MSP) and dark matter (DM) annihilation. In the first case the total number of MSPs needed to produce the gamma-ray flux is compatible with the known (but not confirmed) MSP candidates observed in X-rays. A DM interpretation is motivated by the possibility of Omega-Centauri being the remnant core of an ancient dwarf galaxy hosting a surviving DM component. At least two annihilation channels, light quarks and muons, can plausibly produce the observed gama-ray spectrum. We outline constraints on the parameter space of DM mass versus the product of the pair-annihilation cross section and integrated squared DM density (the so-called J-factor). We translate upper limits on the dark matter content of Omega-Centauri into lower limits on the annihilation cross section. This shows s-wave annihilation into muons to be inconsistent with CMB observations, while a small window for annihilation into light quarks is allowed. Further analysis of Omega-Centauris internal kinematics, and/or additional information on the resident MSP population will yield much stronger constraints and shed light about the origin of this otherwise mysterious gamma-ray source.
Clusters of galaxies are the largest known gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, with masses around $10^{15} M_odot$, most of it in the form of dark matter. The ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope MAGIC made a deep survey of the Perseus cluster of galaxies using almost 400 h of data recorded between 2009 and 2017. This is the deepest observational campaign so far on a cluster of galaxies in the very high energy range. We search for gamma-ray signals from dark matter particles in the mass range between 200 GeV and 200 TeV decaying into standard model pairs. We apply an analysis optimized for the spectral and morphological features expected from dark matter decays and find no evidence of decaying dark matter. From this, we conclude that dark matter particles have a decay lifetime longer than $sim10^{26}$~s in all considered channels. Our results improve previous lower limits found by MAGIC and represent the strongest limits on decaying dark matter particles from ground-based gamma-ray instruments.
In a recent paper Brown et al. (2018) analyze the spectral properties of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae (47 Tuc) using 9 years of Fermi-LAT data. Brown et al. (2018) argue that the emission from 47 Tuc cannot be explained by millisecond pulsars (MSPs) alone because of a significant discrepancy between the MSP spectral properties and those of 47 Tuc. It is argued that there is a significant ($>5sigma$) preference for a two source scenario. The second component could be from the annihilation of dark matter in a density spike surrounding the intermediate-mass black hole candidate in 47 Tuc. In this paper we argue that the claimed discrepancy arises because Brown et al. (2017) use a stacked MSP spectrum to model the emission from MSPs in 47 Tuc which is insufficient to account for the uncertainties in the spectrum of the MSPs in 47 Tuc. Contrary to the claims by Brown et al. (2018), we show that the significance of an additional dark matter component is $lesssim 2sigma$ when sample variance in the spectrum of a population of MSPs is accounted for. The spectrum of 47 Tuc is compatible with that of a population of MSPs similar to the disk population.
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