Angular correlations in the cosmic gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation around intermediate-mass black holes

Understand

Dark matter (DM) annihilation could in principle contribute to the diffuse cosmic gamma-ray back- ground (CGB).

• While with standard assumptions for cosmological and particle physics parameters this contribution is expected to be rather small, a number of processes could boost it, including a larger-than-expected DM annihilation cross-section, or the occurance of DM substructures such as DM mini-spikes around intermediate-mass black holes.
• We show that angular correlations of the CGB provide a tool to disentangle the signal induced by DM annihilation in mini-spikes from a conventional astrophysical component.
• Treating blazars as a known background, we study the prospects for detecting DM annihilations with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope for different choices of DM mass and annihilation channels.