CF2 White Paper: Status and Prospects of The VERITAS Indirect Dark Matter Detection Program

Understand

In this white paper, submitted as a part of Snowmass 2013 (subgroup CF2), we examine the current status and future prospects of the VERITAS indirect dark matter detection program.

• The VERITAS array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), sensitive in the 0.1-50 TeV regime, is in the process of completing a multi-year program aimed at detecting signatures of neutralino dark matter.
• This program is spread out over a range of astrophysical targets which can potentially yield definitive signatures of neutralino self-annihilation such as dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) and the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
• While the program is still in progress, initial results on dSphs have produced very competitive upper limits on the thermally averaged cross-section of neutralino self-annihilation as well as strongly constraining leptophillic dark matter models (such as those inferred from the PAMELA and AMS positron fraction results).