6–10 Jul 2026
University of the Western Cape
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
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Status of WIMP searches with MeerKAT

9 Jul 2026, 10:10
20m
Lecture Hall C5 (University of the Western Cape)

Lecture Hall C5

University of the Western Cape

Oral Presentation Track D - Astrophysics & Space Science Astrophysics & Space Science

Speaker

Geoff Beck (University of the Witwatersrand)

Description

MeerKAT is currently a leading radio interferometer in the frequency range from 500 MHz to 1.6 GHz. So far, WIMP searches have been conducted in legacy survey data of galaxy clusters (MGCLS), archival Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) data, and open-time observations of the dwarf galaxy Reticulum II. In this talk we will present the status of current results from these WIMP searches. Highlighting how the strongest limits come from galaxy clusters and the LMC, rather than regular dwarf galaxies, and exploring the uncertainties and limitations of radio WIMP searches. The principle issue being that, while radio searches have surpassed gamma-ray search sensitivities, the robustness of searches remains an important question to explore.

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Authors

Geoff Beck (University of the Witwatersrand) Natasha Lavis (Centre for Astrophysics, University of the Witwatersrand) Shibre Semane (University of the Witwatersrand)

Presentation materials