First Limits on the Dark Matter Cross Section with the HAWC Observatory

Abstract: The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is a wide field-of-view observatory sensitive to 100 GeV - 100 TeV gamma rays and cosmic rays. The HAWC observatory is also sensitive to diverse indirect searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from non-luminous dark matter subhalos. Among the most promising classes of objects for the indirect detection of dark matter are dwarf spheroidal galaxies. These objects are expected to have few astrophysical sources of gamma rays but high dark matter content, making them ideal candidates for an indirect dark matter detection with gamma rays. Here we present independent limits on the annihilation cross section for 14 dwarf spheroidal galaxies within the HAWC field-of-view, as well as their combined limit. These are the first limits on the annihilation cross section using data collected with HAWC.