The details of what constitutes the majority of the mass that makes up dark matter in the Universe remains one of the prime puzzles of cosmology and particle physics today - eighty years after the first observational indications. Today, it is widely
accepted that dark matter exists and that it is very likely composed of elementary particles - that are weakly interacting and massive (WIMPs for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). As important as dark matter is in our understanding of cosmology, the detection of these particles has so far been elusive. Their primary properties such as mass and interaction cross sections are still unknown. Indirect detection searches for the products of WIMP annihilation or decay. This is generally done through observations of gamma-ray photons or cosmic rays. Instruments such as the Fermi-LAT, H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS, combined with the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will provide important and complementary constraints to other search techniques. Given the expected sensitivities of all search techniques, we are at a stage where the WIMP scenario is facing stringent tests and it can be expected that WIMPs will be either be detected or the scenario will be so severely constrained that it will have to be re-thought. In this sense we are on the Threshold of Discovery. In this article, I will give a general overview over the current status and the future expectations for indirect searches for dark matter (WIMP) particles.
Cosmic rays are particles (mostly protons) accelerated to relativistic speeds. Despite wide agreement that supernova remnants (SNRs) are the sources of galactic cosmic rays, unequivocal evidence for the acceleration of protons in these objects is sti
ll lacking. When accelerated protons encounter interstellar material, they produce neutral pions, which in turn decay into gamma rays. This offers a compelling way to detect the acceleration sites of protons. The identification of pion-decay gamma rays has been difficult because high-energy electrons also produce gamma rays via bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering. We detected the characteristic pion-decay feature in the gamma-ray spectra of two SNRs, IC 443 and W44, with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This detection provides direct evidence that cosmic-ray protons are accelerated in SNRs.
The past decade has seen a dramatic improvement in the quality of data available at both high (HE: 100 MeV to 100 GeV) and very high (VHE: 100 GeV to 100 TeV) gamma-ray energies. With three years of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and
deep pointed observations with arrays of Cherenkov telescope, continuous spectral coverage from 100 MeV to $sim10$ TeV exists for the first time for the brightest gamma-ray sources. The Fermi-LAT is likely to continue for several years, resulting in significant improvements in high energy sensitivity. On the same timescale, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be constructed providing unprecedented VHE capabilities. The optimisation of CTA must take into account competition and complementarity with Fermi, in particularly in the overlapping energy range 10$-$100 GeV. Here we compare the performance of Fermi-LAT and the current baseline CTA design for steady and transient, point-like and extended sources.
Gamma-ray studies are an essential tool in our search for the origin of cosmic rays. Instruments like the Fermi-LAT, H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS have revolutionized our understanding of the high energy Universe. This paper describes the status of the
very rich field of gamma-ray astrophysics that contains a wealth of data on Galactic and extragalactic particle accelerators. It is the write-up of a rapporteur talk given at the 32nd ICRC in Beijing, China in which new results were presented with an emphasis on the cosmic-ray related studies of the Universe.
Whilst the Vela pulsar and its associated nebula are often considered as the archetype of a system powered by a sim10^4 year old isolated neutron star, many features of the spectral energy distribution of this pulsar wind nebula are both puzzling and
unusual. Here we develop a model that for the first time relates the main structures in the system, the extended radio nebula (ERN) and the X-ray cocoon through continuous injection of particles with a fixed spectral shape. We argue that diffusive escape of particles from the ERN can explain the steep Fermi-LAT spectrum. In this scenario Vela X should produce a distinct feature in the locally-measured cosmic ray electron spectrum at very high energies. This prediction can be tested in the future using the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). If particles are indeed released early in the evolution of PWNe and can avoid severe adiabatic losses, PWN provide a natural explanation for the rising positron fraction in the local CR spectrum.
We present observations of the young Supernova remnant (SNR) RX J1713.7-3946 with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). We clearly detect a source positionally coincident with the SNR. The source is extended with a best-fit extension of 0.55$^{circ}
pm 0.04^{circ}$ matching the size of the non-thermal X-ray and TeV gamma-ray emission from the remnant. The positional coincidence and the matching extended emission allows us to identify the LAT source with the supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946. The spectrum of the source can be described by a very hard power-law with a photon index of $Gamma = 1.5 pm 0.1$ that coincides in normalization with the steeper H.E.S.S.-detected gamma-ray spectrum at higher energies. The broadband gamma-ray emission is consistent with a leptonic origin as the dominant mechanism for the gamma-ray emission.
We report on the first detection of GeV high-energy gamma-ray emission from a young supernova remnant with the Large Area Telescope aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These observations reveal a source with no discernible spatial extension d
etected at a significance level of 12.2$sigma$ above 500 MeV at a location that is consistent with the position of the remnant of the supernova explosion that occurred around 1680 in the Cassiopeia constellation - Cassiopeia A. The gamma-ray flux and spectral shape of the source are consistent with a scenario in which the gamma-ray emission originates from relativistic particles accelerated in the shell of this remnant. The total content of cosmic rays (electrons and protons) accelerated in Cas A can be estimated as $W_{mathrm{CR}} approx (1-4) times 10^{49}$ erg thanks to the well-known density in the remnant assuming that the observed gamma-ray originates in the SNR shell(s). The magnetic field in the radio-emitting plasma can be robustly constrained as B $gt 0.1$ mG, providing new evidence of the magnetic field amplification at the forward shock and the strong field in the shocked ejecta.
The survey of the inner Galaxy with H.E.S.S. was remarkably successful in detecting a wide range of new very-high-energy gamma-ray sources. New TeV gamma-ray emitting source classes were established, although several of the sources remain unidentifie
d, and progress has been made in understanding particle acceleration in astrophysical sources. In this work, we constructed a model of a population of such very-high-energy gamma-ray emitters and normalised the flux and size distribution of this population model to the H.E.S.S.-discovered sources. Extrapolating that population of objects to lower flux levels we investigate what a future array of imaging atmospheric telescopes (IACTs) such as AGIS or CTA might detect in a survey of the Inner Galaxy with an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity. The sheer number of sources detected together with the improved resolving power will likely result in a huge improvement in our understanding of the populations of galactic gamma-ray sources. A deep survey of the inner Milky Way would also support studies of the interstellar diffuse gamma-ray emission in regions of high cosmic-ray density. In the final section of this paper we investigate the science potential for the Galactic Centre region for studying energy-dependent diffusion with such a future array.
