Weekly seminars

Searches for Dark Matter with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

par Eric Charles (SLAC)

Europe/Paris
Auditorium (Annecy-le-Vieux)

Auditorium

Annecy-le-Vieux

9 chemin de Bellevue 74940 ANNECY LE VIEUX
Description
The nature of dark matter is a longstanding enigma of physics; it may consist of particles beyond the Standard Model that are still elusive to experiments. Among indirect search techniques, which look for stable products from the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, observations of the gamma-ray sky have come to prominence over the last few years, because of the excellent sensitivity and full-sky coverage of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission. The LAT energy range from 20 MeV to above 300 GeV is particularly well suited for searching for products of the interactions of dark matter particles. In this talk I will describe targets studied for evidence of dark matter with the LAT, and review the status of searches performed with up to seven and a half years of LAT data. I will focus on searches targeting two of the most promising targets: dwarf satellite galaxies of our Milky Way, and Milky Way Galactic center. I will discuss claimed detections of potential signals of dark matter and carefully examine the relevant astrophysical backgrounds for both search targets.