Speaker
Description
High-energy gamma rays are one of the most promising tools to constrain or reveal the nature of dark matter, in particular the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) models. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is well into its pre-construction phase and will soon probe the high energy gamma ray sky in the ~50 GeV - 100 TeV energy range, probing a parameter space of heavier dark matter (above ~100 GeV), with unprecedented sensitivity.
One of the main targets for searches for signals of dark matter annihilation or decay is the centre of our Galaxy. Due to the its lower energy threshold and significantly larger effective area when compared to the current generation of ground based Cherenkov telescopes, the CTA is expected to be sensitive to diffuse astrophysical emission also present in that region. In this talk we report the status of the collaboration effort to, based on the astrophysical emission observed with the LAT at lower energies, study the impact of extended astrophysical emission backgrounds on dark matter search and to suggest the promising data analysis and observational strategies for the upcoming CTA data.
