28–31 Jul 2026
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
America/Toronto timezone

Distinguishing Particle Dark Matter From Primordial Black Holes With MeV Gamma Ray Telescopes

28 Jul 2026, 14:30
15m
360 Tory Building (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada)

360 Tory Building

Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Speaker

Christopher Cappiello

Description

The possibility to detect or constrain dark matter with MeV gamma rays is a strong science case for future telescopes designed to probe the MeV gap. Much work has been done on the potential of such telescopes to detect either primordial black holes, or particle dark matter. However, less work has been done on the potential of these instruments to identify dark matter, that is, to distinguish different dark matter models in the event of an observed signal. We assess the ability of future MeV telescopes to distinguish the photon spectra produced by primordial black holes from those produced by different benchmark particle dark matter models, using AMEGO-X as a concrete example. We show that, for a wide range of currently allowed dark matter parameter space, such models could be distinguished with less than a year of Galactic Center observations.

Presentation materials