WIMP searches with gamma rays in the Fermi era: challenges, methods and results

The launch of the gamma-ray telescope Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) started a pivotal period in indirect detection of dark matter. By outperforming expectations, for the first time a robust and stringent test of the paradigm of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is within reach. In this paper, we discuss astrophysical targets for WIMP detection and the challenges they present, review the analysis tools which have been employed to tackle these challenges, and summarize the status of constraints on and the claimed detections in the WIMP parameter space. Methods and results will be discussed in comparison to Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes. We also provide an outlook on short term and longer term developments.

Searches for Particle Dark Matter with the GLAST Large Area Telescope

The Large Area Telescope (LAT), one of two instruments on the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission, scheduled for launch by NASA in 2007, is an imaging, wide field-of-view, high-energy gamma-ray telescope, covering the approximate energy range from 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV. Annihilation of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP), predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, may give rise to a signal in gamma-ray spectra from many cosmic sources. In this contribution we give an overview of the searches for WIMP Dark Matter performed by the GLAST-LAT collaboration.