Inverse Compton gamma-rays from Galactic dark matter annihilation: Anisotropy signatures

Abstract

High energy electrons and positrons from annihilating dark matter can imprint unique angular anisotropies on the diffuse gamma-ray flux by inverse Compton scattering off the interstellar radiation field. We develop a numerical tool to compute gamma-ray emission from such electrons and positrons diffusing in the smooth host halo and in substructure halos with masses down to 10^(-6) M_sun. We show that, unlike the total gamma-ray angular power spectrum observed by Fermi-LAT, the angular power spectrum from inverse Compton scattering is exponentially suppressed below an angular scale determined by the diffusion length of electrons and positrons. For TeV scale dark matter with a canonical thermal freeze-out cross section 3 x 10^(-26) cm^3/s, this feature may be detectable by Fermi-LAT in the energy range 100-300 GeV after more sophisticated foreground subtraction. We also find that the total flux and the shape of the angular power spectrum depends sensitively on the spatial distribution of subhalos in the Milky Way. Finally, the contribution from the smooth host halo component to the gamma-ray mean intensity is negligibly small compared to subhalos.