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VERITAS limits on dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center halo

A. Archer ¹, P. Bangale ², J. T. Bartkoske ³, W. Benbow ⁴, N. R. Bond ⁵, J. H. Buckley ⁶, Y. Chen ⁷, J. L. Christiansen ⁸, A. J. Chromey ⁴ et al. (VERITAS Collaboration)

A. J. Chromey ⁴, A. Duerr ³, M. Errando ⁶, M. Escobar Godoy ⁹, J. Escudero Pedrosa ⁴, S. Feldman ⁷, Q. Feng ³, S. Filbert ³, L. Fortson ¹⁰, A. Furniss ⁹, W. Hanlon ⁴, O. Hervet ⁹, C. E. Hinrichs ¹¹, J. Holder ¹², D. Huang ¹², T. B. Humensky ¹³, M. Iskakova⁶, W. Jin ⁷, E. Joshi ¹⁴, M. Kertzman¹, M. Kherlakian ¹⁵, D. Kieda ³, T. K. Kleiner ¹⁴, N. Korzoun ¹², S. Kundu¹⁶, M. J. Lang ¹⁷, M. Lundy ¹⁸, G. Maier ¹⁴, M. R. Martin ³, P. Moriarty ¹⁷, R. Mukherjee ¹⁹, W. Ning ⁷, M. Ohishi ²⁰, R. A. Ong ^7,*, A. Pandey ³, M. Pohl ²¹, J. Quinn ⁵, P. L. Rabinowitz ⁶, K. Ragan ²², P. T. Reynolds²³, E. Roache⁴, J. L. Ryan ^24,†, I. Sadeh ¹⁴, L. Saha ⁴, H. Salzmann ⁹, M. Santander ¹⁶, G. H. Sembroski²⁵, D. Tak ²⁶, J. V. Tucci ²⁷, V. V. Vassiliev⁷, D. A. Williams ⁹, S. L. Wong ²², and T. Yoshikoshi ²⁰ (VERITAS Collaboration)

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135-0037, USA
²Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, USA
³Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
⁴Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
⁵School of Physics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
⁶Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA
⁷Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
⁸Physics Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California 94307, USA
⁹Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
¹⁰School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
¹¹Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 USA
¹²Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
¹³Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA and NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
¹⁴DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738 Zeuthen, Germany
¹⁵Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany
¹⁶Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA
¹⁷School of Natural Sciences, University of Galway, University Road, Galway, H91 TK33, Ireland
¹⁸Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
¹⁹Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York 10027, USA
²⁰Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8582, Japan
²¹Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany and DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738 Zeuthen, Germany
²²Physics Department, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec City H3A 2T8, Canada
²³Department of Physical Sciences, Munster Technological University, Bishopstown, Cork, T12 P928, Ireland
²⁴SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
²⁵Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
²⁶Department of Physics, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea
²⁷Department of Physics, Indiana University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, USA

^*Contact author: rene@astro.ucla.edu
^†Contact author: jlryan@slac.stanford.edu

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083044 – Published 26 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/dr62-483r

Abstract

Well-motivated models of particle dark matter predict its self-annihilation into Standard Model end states, which may be detected by particle detectors or telescopes. We conduct an indirect dark matter search using gamma rays detected by the VERITAS telescope from within 2° of the Galactic Center. A template-based approach is used for background estimation, increasing our sensitivity to sources of gamma-ray emission with spatial extents comparable to the 3.5° VERITAS field of view. The analysis benefits from data taken exclusively at large zenith angles, which results in an increased effective area at energies above $\sim 1 TeV$ , compared to small zenith angle observations. No significant gamma-ray signal is observed in the search region, resulting in upper limits on the end-state-dependent dark matter annihilation cross sections. Cross sections as low as $⟨ σ_{ann} v ⟩ = 1.77 \times 10^{- 25} {cm}^{3} s^{- 1}$ are excluded at 95% confidence assuming complete annihilation into $τ^{+} τ^{-}$ , an Einasto profile, and a dark matter mass of 1 TeV.

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VERITAS limits on dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center halo

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