Harnessing the Population Statistics of Subhalos to Search for Annihilating Dark Matter

Abstract The Milky Way’s dark matter halo is expected to host numerous low-mass subhalos with no detectable associated stellar component. Such are invisible unless their annihilates visible states such as photons. One of the established methods for identifying candidate search individual unassociated gamma-ray sources properties consistent expectation. However, robustly ruling out an astrophysical origin any challenging. In this work, we present a complementary approach that harnesses information about entire population subhalos—such spatial and mass distribution in Galaxy—to signal annihilating matter. Using simulated data, show collective emission from can imprint itself unique way on statistics observed photons, even when may be too dim resolved own. Additionally, demonstrate that, models consider, identified face unresolved point-source extragalactic Galactic origin. This establishes new technique methods, could have important ramifications searches using observatories Fermi Large Area Telescope Cerenkov Array.