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arXiv · 1312.0006

The Dark Matter Contribution to Galactic Diffuse Gamma Ray Emission

Lin F. Yang·Joseph Silk·Alexander S. Szalay·Rosemary F. G. Wyse·Brandon Bozek·Piero Madau
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Abstract

Observations of diffuse Galactic gamma ray emission (DGE) by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) allow a detailed study of cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. However, diffuse emission models of the inner Galaxy underpredict the Fermi-LAT data at energies above a few GeV and hint at possible non-astrophysical sources including dark matter (DM) annihilations or decays. We present a study of the possible emission components from DM using the high-resolution Via Lactea II N-body simulation of a Milky Way-sized DM halo. We generate full-sky maps of DM annihilation and decay signals that include modeling of the adiabatic contraction of the host density profile, Sommerfeld enhanced DM annihilations, $p$-wave annihilations, and decaying DM. We compare our results with the DGE models produced by the Fermi-LAT team over different sky regions, including the Galactic center, high Galactic latitudes, and the Galactic anti-center. This work provides possible templates to fit the observational data that includes the contribution of the subhalo population to DM gamma-ray emission, with the significance depending on the annihilation/decay channels and the Galactic regions being considered.

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Lin F. Yang, Joseph Silk, Alexander S. Szalay, Rosemary F. G. Wyse, Brandon Bozek, Piero Madau. 2014-04-02. The Dark Matter Contribution to Galactic Diffuse Gamma Ray Emission. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.89.063530

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