Black Hole Window into p-Wave Dark Matter Annihilation

Area of Science:

• Astrophysics
• Particle Physics
• Cosmology

Background:

• Supermassive black holes create dense dark matter (DM) spikes.
• P-wave suppressed annihilation cross sections are challenging to detect.
• Gamma-ray observations of the Galactic Center (GC) offer a unique probe.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a method for constraining p-wave-suppressed DM annihilation cross sections.
• To investigate the detectability of thermal p-wave DM signals in GC environments.
• To establish new limits on dark matter models and astrophysical parameters.

Main Methods:

• Modeling DM annihilation within supermassive black hole density spikes.
• Analyzing gamma-ray emission signatures from DM annihilation.
• Utilizing Fermi Large Area Telescope data.
• Defining reference theories for thermal p-wave DM.

Main Results:

• High DM densities and velocity dispersions in spikes enhance p-wave signals.
• DM signals appear as bright central point sources, not extended.
• Fermi-LAT is sensitive to thermal p-wave DM across various GC DM distributions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed method enables new constraints on p-wave-suppressed DM annihilations.
• Thermal p-wave DM signals are potentially observable in the GC.
• Current Fermi-LAT sensitivity covers a significant parameter space for these models.