corner
corner

Phys. Rev. D 78, 087101 (2008) [4 pages]

Search for dark matter annihilation in Draco with the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment

Download: PDF (156 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

D. D. Driscoll* and C. E. Covault
Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA

J. Ball, J. E. Carson, A. Jarvis, R. A. Ong, and J. Zweerink
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA

D. S. Hanna, J. Kildea§, T. Lindner**, C. Mueller††, and K. Ragan
Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8

P. Fortin and R. Mukherjee
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

D. A. Williams
Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

D. M. Gingrich
Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2G7 Canada and TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC V6T 2A3 Canada

Received 25 June 2008; published 2 October 2008

For some time, the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy has garnered interest as a possible source for the indirect detection of dark matter. Its large mass-to-light ratio and relative proximity to the Earth provide favorable conditions for the production of a detectable flux of gamma rays from dark matter self-annihilation in its core. The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE) is an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope located in Albuquerque, NM capable of detecting gamma rays at energies above 100 GeV. We present the results of the STACEE observations of Draco during the 2005–2006 observing season totaling 10.2 hours of live time after cuts. We do not detect a significant gamma-ray signal from Draco, and place an upper limit on a power-law spectrum of dN/dE|Draco<1.6×10-13(E/220  GeV)-2.2γ  s-1 cm-2 GeV-1 Assuming a smooth Navarro-Frenk-White profile for the dark-matter halo and an annihilation spectrum, we also derive upper limits for the cross-section-velocity product (σv) for weakly interacting massive particles self-annihilation.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.087101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.78.087101
PACS:
95.55.Ka, 95.35.+d, 98.52.Wz

*Current Address: Kent State University, Ashtabula Campus, Ashtabula, OH 44004, USA;

ddd3@po.cwru.edu

Current Address: Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI 96720, USA.

Current Address: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.

§Current Address: F.L. Whipple Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Amado, AZ 85645, USA.

**Current Address: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

††Current Address: Sander Geophysical Limited, Ottawa, ON K1V 1C1, Canada.