Signals from Dark Matter Satellites and Fermi-LAT

Signals from Dark Matter Satellites and Fermi-LAT

Dark matter is not so dark as the name might imply. Although it so far refuses to interact with normal matter via any force other than gravity, there are secondary signals that we can detect. When we turn our gamma-ray telescopes on regions like the Galactic Center that contain a high density of dark matter, we expect to see a dim, widespread gamma ray haze coming from seemingly empty space, with no baryonic matter source. This paper, due to be published by the Astrophysical Journal, discusses the search for this signature by the collection of satellites that surrounds the Milky Way, and uses the lack of a detection to set an upper limit on the cross-section of the WIMP particle.