33RD INTERNATIONAL COSMIC RAY CONFERENCE, RIO DE JANEIRO 2013 THE ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS CONFERENCE Limits on Indirect Detection of WIMPs with the HAWC Observatory

Abstract: A growing body of evidence exists supporting the existence of Dark Matter (DM) yet its particle nature remains a mystery. Weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with a mass ranging from 10 GeV to 10 TeV are a popular candidate to explain the particle nature of DM. A WIMP hypothesis is compelling as it naturally explains the density of DM observed (thermal freeze out) and such particles are expected in some solutions to the gauge hierarchy problem. Such WIMPs are expected to annihilate into Standard Model particles and produce high energy photons via various processes. Detecting such high energy photons would provide an indirect detection of the DM particle mass. Below 1 TeV the Fermi-LAT provides the community with the most stringent limits of indirect detection of WIMP candidates. Above 1 TeV air-Čerenkov telescopes such as VERITAS and H.E.S.S. have placed competitive limits using a subset of expected WIMP emission sources. The High Altitude Water Čerenkov (HAWC) observatory complements these detectors above a few 100 GeV with its large effective area, excellent angular resolution, efficient gamma-hadron separation, and greater than 90 % duty cycle. HAWC is currently being deployed and operated near Puebla, Mexico. We present preliminary predictions for the limits for various DM annhilation channel hypotheses that we will be able to place with the HAWC Observatory