Colloquium Detail

Investigating WIMPs with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Date: 1/25/2010

Simona Murgia
SLAC National Accelerator LaboratoryThe Fermi Large Area Telescope, or LAT, was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on June 11, 2008. It is exploring the gamma ray sky in the energy range from 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV with unprecedented sensitivity. One of the most exciting science questions that the Fermi LAT will address is the nature of dark matter. Several theoretical models have been proposed that predict the existence of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles--WIMPs--that are excellent dark matter candidates. The Fermi LAT investigates the existence of WIMPs indirectly, primarily through their annihilation or decay into photons and into electrons and positrons. Murgia will present recent results on these searches.