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Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1719–1722 (1999)

Dark Matter Annihilation at the Galactic Center

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Paolo Gondolo*
Max Planck Institut für Physik, Föhringer Ring 6, 80805 Munich, Germany

Joseph Silk
Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
and Department of Astronomy and Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720

Received 24 March 1999; revised 24 June 1999; published in the issue dated 30 August 1999

Cold dark matter near the galactic center is accreted by the central black hole into a dense spike. Particle dark matter annihilation makes the spike a compact source of photons, electrons, positrons, protons, antiprotons, and neutrinos. The spike luminosity depends on the halo density profile: halos with finite cores have unnoticeable spikes; halos with inner cusps may have spikes so bright that the absence of a neutrino signal from the galactic center already places upper limits on the density slope of the inner halo. Future neutrino telescopes observing the galactic center could probe the inner structure of the dark halo or indirectly find the nature of dark matter.

© 1999 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1719
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1719
PACS:
95.35.+d, 98.35.Gi

*Email address: gondolo@mppmu.mpg.de

Email address: silk@astro.ox.ac.uk