Search for a gamma-ray line feature from a group of nearby Galaxy clusters with Fermi LAT Pass 8 data

Abstract

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe and may be suitable targets for indirect dark matter searches. With 85 months of Fermi-LAT Pass 8 publicly available data, we analyze the gamma-ray emission in the directions of 16 nearby Galaxy Clusters with an unbinned likelihood analysis. No globally statistically-significant $\gamma -$ray line feature is identified and a tentative line signal may be present at $\sim 43$ GeV. The 95\% confidence level upper limits on the velocity-averaged cross section of dark matter particles annihilating into double $\gamma -$rays (i.e., $⟨\sigma v{⟩}_{\chi \chi \to \gamma \gamma }$) are derived. Unless very optimistic boost factors of dark matter annihilation in these Galaxy Clusters have been assumed, such constraints are much weaker than the bounds set by the Galactic $\gamma -$ray data.

Comments: The version published in Phys. Rev. D, minor revision (10 pages including 4 eps figures)