Overview
- High-resolution models that include the Milky Way’s formation history predict a flattened, asymmetric dark-matter distribution that can match the Fermi-LAT excess.
- The Physical Review Letters study, led by Moorits Muru with collaborators at AIP, Hebrew University, and Johns Hopkins, finds dark-matter annihilation and millisecond pulsars remain roughly equally plausible sources.
- NASA’s Fermi telescope has observed the persistent gamma-ray excess near the Galactic Center since 2008, but previous spherical-halo assumptions hindered dark-matter fits.
- The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory under construction in Chile and Spain is expected to deliver higher-resolution gamma-ray data starting as soon as 2027 to help discriminate between the two scenarios.
- Researchers plan targeted predictions for nearby dwarf galaxies and caution that the new results are not definitive, with external experts noting the need for closer shape and spectral tests.