2011/04/14 by Troy A. Porter, Robert P. Johnson, Peter W. Graham · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE #hep-ex #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081710-102528
Solicited review article to appear in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 52 pages, 10 figures (higher resolution figures will appear in the journal article)
arxiv created 2011/04/14 · arxiv updated 2015/05/27
The existence of dark matter (DM) was first noticed by Zwicky in the 1930s, but its nature remains one of the great unsolved problems of physics. A variety of observations indicate that it is non-baryonic and non-relativistic. One of the preferred candidates for non-baryonic DM is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) that in most models is stable. WIMP self-annihilation can produce cosmic rays, gamma rays, and other particles with signatures that may be detectable. Hints of anomalous cosmic-ray spectra found by recent experiments, such as PAMELA, have motivated interesting interpretations in terms of DM annihilation and/or decay. However, these signatures also have standard astrophysical interpretations, so additional evidence is needed in order to make a case for detection of DM annihilation or decay. Searches by the Fermi Large Area Telescope for gamma-ray signals from clumps, nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and galaxy clusters have also been performed, along with measurements of the diffuse Galactic and extragalactic gamma-ray emission. In addition, imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes like HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS have reported on searches for gamma-ray emission from dwarf galaxies. In this review, we examine the status of searches for particle DM by these instruments and discuss the interpretations and resulting DM limits.