Gamma rays from ultracompact minihalos: Potential constraints on the primordial curvature perturbation

Abstract

Ultracompact minihalos (UCMHs) are dense dark matter structures, which can form from large density perturbations shortly after matter-radiation equality. If dark matter is in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), then UCMHs may be detected via their gamma-ray emission. We investigate how the Fermi satellite could constrain the abundance of UCMHs and place limits on the power spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation.