Paper detail

Are we really seeing dark matter signals from the Milky Way center?

The center of the Milky Way is one of the most interesting regions of the $γ$-ray sky because of the potential for indirect dark matter (DM) detection. It is also complicated due to the many sources and uncertainties associated with the diffuse $γ$-ray emission. Many independent groups have claimed a DM detection in the data collected by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi $γ$-ray Satellite from the inner Galaxy region at energies below 10 GeV. However, an exotic signal needs to be disentangled from the data using a model of known $γ$-ray emitters, i.e. a background model. We point out that deep understanding of background ingredients and their main uncertainties is of capital importance to disentangle a dark matter signal from the Galaxy center.