Indirect Dark Matter Searches with VERITAS
Written by Matt Wood for the VERITAS Collaboration   
Monday, 31 March 2008

Bulletin of the AAS (BAAS), volume 40, number 1, 2008 (18.06)

If dark matter (DM) is composed of massive, weakly-interacting particles such as the neutralino predicted by supersymmetry, pair annihilation to gamma rays or secondary particles ultimately producing a continuum spectrum of gamma rays may take place in gravitationally clustered DM. Due to their large mass-to-light ratios and the absence of conventional gamma-ray sources in their vicinity, dwarf spheroidal galaxies of the Local Group are obvious targets to search for such annihilation. We report here on gamma-ray observations taken with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) during the 2007/8 season of the dwarf galaxies Ursa Minor, Draco, and Willman I and the local group galaxy M33. We discuss the implications of these measurements for models of DM clustering and DM particle properties.

Last Updated ( Monday, 14 April 2008 )