Abstract:
If the dark matter, which is considered to constitute most of the
mass of galaxies, is made of supersymmetric particles, the
central region of our Galaxy should emit gamma rays produced by
their annihilation. We use detailed models of the Milky Way to make
accurate estimates of continuum gamma-ray fluxes. We argue that the
most important effect, which was previously neglected, is the
compression of the dark matter due to the infall of baryons to the
galactic center: it boosts the expected signal by a factor 1000. To
illustrate this effect, we computed the expected gamma fluxes
in the minimal supergravity scenario. Our models predict that the signal
could be detected at high confidence levels by imaging atmospheric
Cherenkov telescopes assuming that neutralinos make up most of the
DM in the Universe.