Speaker
Description
Dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies (dSphs) of the Milky Way appear to
be the most dark matter (DM) dominated objects in the near Universe.
Their proximity coupled with their low astrophysical background make
them ideal targets for DM indirect detection, which can be achieved by
searching for DM decay or annihilation into, e.g., γ-rays. The latter
approach requires the calculation of the J-factor, which quantifies the
amount of DM along the line of observation. This quantity has been previously derived with Bayesian techniques, thereby subjecting the results
to the effects of priors. We present here the progresses in the development
of a fully frequentist approach, namely its validation on the simulations
generated by the Gaia Challenge team and the results on the kinematic
data from 20 dSphs. The former imply satisfactory statistical properties
of the method and provide a good indication of its reliability. The latter
are in most cases compatible with results previously obtained by other
groups; the largest deviations are observed in the faintest systems. We
find that the error bugdet is dominated by model systematic effects for
dSphs with more than 100 stars. We conclude with an overview of the
possible improvements, extensions and applications of our technique.
