Note: 2:00 PM

Speaker: Matthew Philip McCullough, MIT

When: November 16, 2012 (Fri), 02:00PM to 03:00PM (add to my calendar)

Location: PRB 595

Abstract:

 

Earlier this year strong evidence was claimed for a 130 GeV gamma ray line from the galactic center in the FERMI telescope data.  In the first half of the talk I will review the status of the evidence, including recent suggestions which call it into question.  In the second half of the talk, under the bold assumption that the line is a genuine signature of dark matter, I will review some of the properties required of dark matter to explain the line and the general features of models proposed to explain it.  This second half will include material from recent work with Francesco and Jesse (arxiv:1210.7817), which suggests that the line is more readily explained by dark matter "semi-annihilation" rather than the standard annihilation interpretation.