Speaker
Description
High-energy astrophysical messengers provide a unique probe of possible non-gravitational interactions of dark matter. In particular, gamma rays produced in the vicinity of supermassive black holes may traverse large dark-matter column densities, especially in the presence of dense dark-matter spikes, and can consequently be attenuated through dark matter–photon scattering. In this work, we develop a statistical framework to constrain dark matter–photon interactions directly from gamma-ray observations, extending our recent analysis of dark matter–neutrino scattering to the photon sector. The modification of the source flux induced by propagation through the dark-matter distribution is incorporated into the predicted gamma-ray signal and confronted with observational data through a likelihood-based analysis. This enables
statistically well-defined constraints on the dark matter–photon scattering cross section and allows information from multiple astrophysical sources to be combined. We investigate the dependence of the sensitivity on the dark-matter mass and astrophysical dark-matter distribution, including the enhanced densities expected around central
supermassive black holes. Our analysis provides a complementary, data-driven probe of dark matter–photon interactions and demonstrates the broader potential of high energy multimessenger observations to probe dark matter signatures.