A Global Analysis of Dark Matter Signals from 27 Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies using 11 Years of Fermi-LAT Observations

Abstract

We search for a dark matter signal in 11 years of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data from 27 Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies with spectroscopically measured $J$-factors. Our analysis includes uncertainties in $J$-factors and background normalisations and compares results from a Bayesian and a frequentist perspective. We revisit the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Reticulum II, confirming that the purported gamma-ray excess seen in Pass 7 data is much weaker in Pass 8, independently of the statistical approach adopted. We introduce for the first time posterior predictive distributions to quantify the probability of a dark matter detection from another dwarf galaxy given a tentative excess. A global analysis including all 27 dwarfs shows no indication for a signal in nine annihilation channels. We present stringent new Bayesian and frequentist upper limits on the dark matter cross section as a function of dark matter mass. The best-fit dark matter parameters associated with the Galactic Centre excess are excluded by at least 95% confidence level/posterior probability in the frequentist/Bayesian framework in all cases. However, from a Bayesian model comparison perspective, dark matter annihilation within the dwarfs is not strongly disfavoured compared to a background-only model. These results constitute the highest exposure analysis on the most complete sample of dwarfs to date. Posterior samples and likelihood maps from this study are publicly available.Comment: 27+5 pages, 10 figures. Version 2 corresponds to the Accepted Manuscript version of the JCAP article; the analysis has been updated to Pass 8 R3 data plus 4FGL catalogue, with one more year of data and more annihilation channels. Supplementary Material (tabulated limits, likelihoods, and posteriors) is available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.261226