Dark matter in the Reticulum II dSph: a radio search

Marco Regis, Laura Richter, Sergio Colafrancesco

Published 2017-03-29Version 1

We present a deep radio search in the Reticulum II dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy performed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Observations were conducted at 16 cm wavelength, with an rms sensitivity of 0.01 mJy/beam, and with the goal of searching for synchrotron emission induced by annihilation or decay of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). Data were complemented with observations on large angular scales taken with the KAT-7 telescope. We find no evidence for a diffuse emission from the dSph and we derive competitive bounds on the WIMP properties. In addition, we detect more than 200 new background radio sources. Among them, we show there are two compelling candidates for being the radio counterpart of the possible gamma-ray emission reported by other groups using Fermi-LAT data.