Implications of the intermediate mass black hole in globular cluster G1 on dark matter detection

Recently there has been growing evidence in favor of the presence of an intermediate mass black hole in the globular cluster G1, in Andromeda Galaxy. Under the assumption that formation of this globular cluster occurred within a dark matter halo, we explore whether the presence of a black hole could result in an observable gamma ray signal due to dark matter annihilation in this globular cluster. Starting from an initial Navarro-Frenk-White matter profile, with density parameters consistent with G1 observations, we find that indeed, if the spike in the density has been formed and has survived until the present, the signal could be observed by GLAST and current atmospheric Cerenkov telescope detectors.

Figure 1

The nonshaded region is the range of $r_s$ and $m_{\mathrm{DM}}$ which could be detectable by GLAST or VERITAS with $5\sigma$ significance or better. The shaded region is the excluded region from the EGRET observation. The solid line represents the case of $\Delta M=9\times {10}^4{M}_{\odot }$, and the dotted one $\Delta M=3\times {10}^4{M}_{\odot }$.