Cross-Correlation of Cosmic Shear and Extragalactic Gamma-ray Background: Constraints on the Dark Matter Annihilation Cross-Section

Abstract: We present the first measurement of the cross-correlation of weak gravitational lensing and the extragalactic gamma-ray background emission using data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Lensing Survey and the Fermi Large Area Telescope. The cross-correlation is a powerful probe of signatures of dark matter annihilation, because both cosmic shear and gamma-ray emission originate directly from the same DM distribution in the universe, and it can be used to derive constraints on dark matter annihilation cross-section. We show that the measured lensing-gamma correlation is consistent with a null signal. Comparing the result to theoretical predictions, we exclude dark matter annihilation cross sections of <sigma v> =10^{-24}-10^{-25} cm^3 s^-1 for a 100 GeV dark matter. If dark matter halos exist down to the mass scale of 10^-6 M_sun, we are able to place constraints on the thermal cross sections <sigma v> ~ 3 x 10^{-26} cm^3 s^-1 for a 10 GeV dark matter annihilation into tau^{+} tau^{-}. Future gravitational lensing surveys will increase sensitivity to probe annihilation cross sections of <sigma v> ~ 5 x 10^{-26} cm^3 s^-1 even for a 100 GeV dark matter. Detailed modeling of the contributions from astrophysical sources to the cross correlation signal could further improve the constraints by ~ 40-70 %.