Indirect Detection as a probe of new physics: from WIMPs to memory burdened PBHs

by Giulio Marino (INFN, Pisa)

Thursday Nov 13, 2025, 12:00 PM → 1:00 PM Europe/Madrid

IFAE Seminar Room (In-Person)

Dark matter remains one of the great mysteries of fundamental physics. Its true nature could lie anywhere across a vast range of mass scales, from new particles to black holes, and each possibility demands a different strategy to uncover it. Indirect detection is central to this effort, and with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) the field is on the verge of a breakthrough. On the particle side, Minimal Dark Matter offers a remarkably predictive framework. For the SU(2) 5-plet, bound-state formation and Sommerfeld enhancement give rise to smoking-gun signatures for Indirect Detection. Current FERMI-LAT data already constrain parts of the parameter space, and CTAO, with a few hundred hours of observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies, will have the power to deliver a decisive test. At higher mass scales, Primordial Black Holes could also constitute dark matter. If the memory-burden effect halts their evaporation, an unexplored window below 10^15 g reopens. Some PBHs could even be leaving traces today through the production of high-energy stable particles, all within reach of current and next-generation facilities. By testing candidates across very different scales, indirect detection offers a powerful way to uncover the nature of dark matter.