First Limits on the Dark Matter Cross Section with the HAWC Observatory

Understand

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is a wide field-of-view observatory sensitive to 100 GeV - 100 TeV gamma rays and cosmic rays.

• The HAWC observatory is also sensitive to diverse indirect searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from non-luminous dark matter subhalos.
• Among the most promising classes of objects for the indirect detection of dark matter are dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
• These objects are expected to have few astrophysical sources of gamma rays but high dark matter content, making them ideal candidates for an indirect dark matter detection with gamma rays.