
SPECIAL JOINT PARTICLE/ASTROPHYSICS SEMINAR
NOTE DATE
Date: Tuesday,
30 May 2006
Time:
3:30 p.m.
Place: 1201 Natural Sciences 2
Speaker:
Gianfranco Bertone,
Title:
Light from Darkness: Dark Matter Annihilations in Mini-spikes
around Intermediate Mass Black Holes
Abstract:
After a brief review on the status of indirect Dark Matter searches, I
will discuss a new strategy based on the detection of gamma-rays and
neutrinos from Dark Matter annihilations in 'mini-spikes' around
Intermediate Mass Black Holes. I will show that, for typical values of
mass and cross section of common DM candidates, mini-spikes would be
bright sources of gamma-rays , which could be easily detected with
GLAST, and further studied with Air Cherenkov Telescopes CANGAROO,
HESS, MAGIC and VERITAS. The detection of many gamma-ray sources
not associated with a luminous component of the Local Group, and with
identical cut-offs in their energy spectra at the mass of the DM particle,
would provide a potential "smoking-gun" signature of DM annihilations and
shed new light on the nature of intermediate and supermassive Black Holes.
Finally, I will discuss the implications of this scenario for anti-matter and
high-energy neutrino searches with upcoming km scale experiments.
Host: J. Feng