2013/07/31 by B. Zitzer, Zitzer, Benjamin · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Scientific Research and Discoveries
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1307.8367
openalex publication_date 2013/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Current cosmological models and data suggest the existence of a cold Dark Matter (DM) component, however the nature of DM particles remains unknown. A favored candidate for DM is a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) in the mass range of 50 GeV to greater than 10 TeV. Nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are expected to contain a high density of DM with a low gamma-ray background, and are thus promising targets for the detection of secondary gamma rays at very high energies (VHE, E > 0.1 TeV) through the annihilation of WIMPs into Standard Model (SM) particles. The VERITAS array of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs), sensitive to gamma rays in the 100GeV to 50 TeV range, carries out an extensive observation program of dSphs. Presented here are results of the observations and new statistical techniques for constraining properties of WIMP DM models.