Researchers have claimed that gamma-ray photons observed from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy are consistent with the intriguing possibility of dark matter annihilation.
Kevork Abazajian, Nicolas Canac, Shunsaku Horiuchi and Manoj Kaplinghat analyzed data from NASA's space-borne Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and found that only a narrow range of dark matter models can produce an excess of gamma rays coming from the Milky Way.
These gamma rays could be produced as particles of dark matter annihilate one another. The data was collected August 2008 to May 2013.
Abazajian said that the data provides a better-than-10-percent precise determination of the dark matter's particle mass with the best estimates we have of what else is going on in the galactic center.
According to Kaplinghat, the signal is robust because its key features did not change even when several other possible sources were included.
He also pointed out that a large number of yet unseen pulsars emitting gamma rays could also be an explanation for this signal.
The study has been submitted to the journal Physical Review D.
