Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Indirect Searches'

Després de dècades d'observacions, és evident que les partíicules del model estàndard són insuficients per explicar el fort desequilibri gravitacional observat a diverses regions astronòmiques, de diferents escales cosmològiques, des de satèl·lits de la Via Làctia fins a cúmuls de galàxies. Si bé és veritat que algunes teories suggereixen a una modificació de les lleis gravitacionals actuals, l'existència d'una partícula (o un grup de partícules) nova, interaccionant de forma feble amb les partícules del model estàndard està considerada com l'opció més viable. Estimacions recents prediuen que aquest tipus de matèria fosca és 4 vegades més present que la matèria del model estàndard, modelant així la formació de les grans estructures de l'univers al llarg de la vida d'aquest. Un escenari general de la matèria fosca és el dels WIMPs, partícules genèriques massives, amb masses entre pocs GeVs i alguns TeV, interaccions de l'ordre de les interaccions dèbils del model estàndard, i o bé estables o amb temps de vida mitjana prou llargs. L'escenari WIMP ha estat llargament debatut, i té l'avantatja d'estar a l'abast dels instruments més potents construïts a la terra, proporcionant així possibles deteccions independents que podria validar el descobriment. En particular em centro en cerques indirectes de matèria fosca, on s'espera que WIMPs anihilats o decaient emetin rajos gamma amb energies detectables per telescopis IACT, com per exemple els telescopis MAGIC, actualment operant des de La Palma o la futura xarxa de telescopis CTA. El senyal esperat de rajos gamma d'aquesta matèria fosca pot ser moderadament extensa, comparada amb el camp de visió dels IACTs, cosa que afegeix certa complexitat a les cerques de matèria fosca realitzades per a aquests telescopis. En aquesta tesi, he contribuït a l'esforç realitzat per MAGIC en cerques indirectes de matèria fosca a diferents nivells d'analisis. He desenvolupat una eina per gestionar volums massius de dades que són típicament generats per MAGIC, però també per tota la comunitat experimental de física d'altes energies. També he desenvolupat un MonteCarlo per a fonts extenses que s'ajusta a l'emissió esperada de la font, obtenint així les funcions correctes de resposta de l'instrument. Finalment, un mètode per a optimitzar la configuració d'apuntat durant les observacions de fonts moderadament extenses amb IACTs ha estat proposat. El mètode té en compte la resposta finita dels IACTs al llarg de tot el camp de visió per a proporcionar la distància òptima a la qual el telescopi ha d'apuntar a la font, així com, quina seria la regió d'integració més adient. Apliquem aquest mètode per primera vegada a cerques de matèria fosca en galàxies satèl·lits de la Via Làctia. També exposo la meva contribució al telescopi més gran que operarà a CTA, el LST, que dominarà la sensibilitat de cerques de WIMPs estàndard. Límits a la secció eficaç i/o temps de vida mitjana són imposats mitjançant 60 hores d'observació de la galàxia Triangulum-II i 202 hores del cúmul de galàxies de Perseus. En ambdues cerques, fem ús del mètode de màxima versemblança, optimitzat per a la morfologia espacial i energètica del senyal esperat de rajos gamma. Obtenim sensibilitats a la secció eficaç de 3·10^{-26}~\cm^{3}\s^{-1} i temps de vida mitjana de 0.3·10^{25}~\s, essent aquests els resultats més restrictius obtinguts amb MAGIC en cerques de WIMPs.
Decades of observational evidences have been accumulated to show that Standard Model (SM) particles cannot totally explain the strong gravitational unbalance observed in several astronomical regions, at all cosmological scales, from that of Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxies, to that of Cluster of Galaxies (CGs). Although some theories argue for the modification of the gravitational laws, the existence of a new massive particle (or a set of them), interacting only weakly with SM particles, provides a preferred explanation. It is estimated that this form of Dark Matter (DM) roughly accounts for 4 times the amount of SM matter, therefore shaping the evolution of cosmic structures along the history of the Universe. A well-motivated general framework for DM is that of a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP), generic massive particles with a mass range expected between few GeVs and few hundreds TeV, interaction strengths at the weak scale, and either stable or very long lived. The WIMP paradigm has been long debated, and has the advantage of being at reach by different of the top-class instruments of the current times, so that a putative discovery could be validated independently. We focus on the indirect search of DM, where annihilating or decaying WIMPs are expected to emit gamma rays at energies detectable by Imaginc Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs), as the currently operating MAGIC telescopes or the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The expected DM signal can be moderate extended when compared to IACTs Field of View (FoV), what challenges the performance of the \acrshort{dm} search of these instruments. In this thesis, I contribute to the MAGIC ongoing efforts on indirect DM searches at different analysis levels. A tool for handling the massive data products generated by current high energy experiments is developed. More over, a tailored Monte Carlo (MC) for moderate extended sources is proposed as an upgrade of the current general MC for extended sources. Finally, a method to optimize the pointing strategy of IACTs while observing moderate extended sources taking into account the off-axis performance of the instrument has also been developed and, implemented for the first time to indirect DM searches on highly DM dominated nearby dwarf Sphereoidal galaxies (dSphs). I also show my contribution to the largest telescope to be part of CTA, the Large Size Telescopes, that will dominate the CTA sensitivity for standard WIMP searches. Constraints on the WIMP thermally averaged cross-section and/or decay life-time are put with 60~hours of data in the recently discovered dSph Triangulum-II and 202~hours on the Perseus CG. On both searches, we apply a binned likelihood analysis optimized for the spectral and morphological features of gamma-ray signals of DM from annihilating or decaying WIMPs. We reach sensitivities to the thermally averaged cross-section of 3·10^{-26}~\cm^{3}\s^{-1} and decay life-times of 0.3·\times10^{25}~\s, being this the most constraining MAGIC results on WIMP searches.

The search for new physics beyond the Standard Model can follow one of two tracks: direct searches for new particles at the collider or indirect probes for new physics from precision measurements. In the direct searches for third generation squarks in SUSY at the LHC, the common practice has been to assume a 100% decay branching fraction for a given search channel. In realistic MSSM scenarios, there is often more than one signicant decay mode present, which signicantly weakens the current search limits on third generation squarks at the LHC. On the other hand, the combination of multiple decay modes as well as the new open decay modes offer alternative discovery channels for third generation squarks searches. In this work, we present the third generation squarks decay and the collider signatures in a few representative mass parameter scenarios. We then analyze the reach of the stop/sbottom signal for the pair production in QCD at the 14 TeV LHC with 300 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity and of the 100 TeV future collider with 3000 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity in a few representative scenarios. In the scenario of Bino LSP with Wino NLSP, we investigate stop/sbottom pair production at the LHC with one stop/sbottom decaying via t̃ --> t𝑥[0 1], t𝑥[0 2]/b̃ --> b𝑥[0 1], b𝑥[0 2], and the other one decaying via t̃ --> b𝑥[± 1]/b̃ -->t𝑥[± 1]. With the gaugino subsequent decaying to gauge bosons or a Higgs boson 𝑥[0 2] --> 𝑍𝑥[0 1], h𝑥[0 1] and 𝑥[± 1]--> 𝑊±𝑥[0 1], leading to 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑗𝑗𝓁 Ɇᴛ final states for the Higgs channel and 𝑏𝑏𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗𝓁𝓁Ɇᴛ final states for the 𝑍 channel, we study the reach of those signals at the 14 TeV LHC with 300 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity. Because the sbottom and stop signals in the same SUSY parameter scenario have indistinguishable final states, they are combined to obtain optimal sensitivity, which is about 150 GeV better than the individual reaches of the sbottom or stop. In the scenario of Bino LSP with Higgsino NLSP. The light stop pair production at the 14 TeV LHC, with stops decaying via t̃₁ --> t𝑥[0 2]/𝑥[0 3] and the neutralino subsequently decaying to a gauge boson or a Higgs boson 𝑥[0 2]/𝑥[0 3] --> 𝑥[0 1]h/𝑍, leads to tt̄hh Ɇᴛ, tt̄h𝑍 Ɇᴛ or tt̄𝑍𝑍 Ɇᴛ final states. The above decay channels give rise to final states containing one or more leptons, therefore our search strategy is to divide the signal regions based on the multiplicity of leptons. We find that the one lepton signal region of channel tt̄h𝑍 Ɇᴛ has the best reach sensitivity of light stop searches at the 14 TeV LHC with 300 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity. We then combine all the signal regions for a given decay channel or combine all the decay channels for a given signal region to maximize the reach sensitivity of the stop search. For the light stop pair production at the √s = 100 TeV future machine with 3000 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity, we find that a stop with a mass up to 6 TeV can be discovered at 5𝜎 signicance, while a mass up to 6.8 TeV can be excluded at 95% C.L. for the combined results of all three channels. In the indirect probes for new physics, we utilize the 𝑍-pole Oblique Parameters 𝑆,𝑇, 𝑈 and Higgs precision measurements complementarily in the framework of the Two Higgs Doublet Model at current and future colliders. The 𝑆, 𝑇 , 𝑈 is not that sensitive to the rotation angle 𝛽-𝛼, while the Higgs precision measurements set strong constrains on 𝛽-𝛼. Also the 𝑇 is very sensitive to the mass difference of Higgs bosons, leading to the mass of charged Higgs (H±) aligning either along with the mass of neutral Higgs 𝐻 or 𝐴. As for the Higgs precision measurements, we consider the tree level corrections to Higgs coupling constants as well as the radiative corrections to Higgs coupling constants at one loop level for the future collider. The combination of 𝑍-pole precision measurements and Higgs precision measurements complementarily set strong constraints on the parameter space of the 2HDM, especially in the future 𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ circular collider compared to the current collider due to much cleaner backgrounds and higher luminosity.

Il y a tout juste cent ans que les premières mesures du taux d'ionisation de l'air ont dévoilé que la terre est sans cesse bombardée par une pluie de particules énergétiques provenant du Cosmos. D'un point de vue astrophysique, l'origine de ces particules hautement relativistes, appelés rayons cosmiques (CRs), ainsi que leur mécanisme d'accélération restent très peu connus. Le paradigme actuel suppose une injection sporadique des CRs accélérés par la propagation d'ondes de choc au cours de la mort de certaines étoiles (SNRs).Les mesures récentes des flux de CRs (par les expériences PAMELA et AMS-02 par exemple) inaugurent une nouvelle ère de précision dans la mesure où les incertitudes statistiques sont désormais considérablement réduites. Dans ce mémoire de thèse, nous proposons et approfondissons de nouvelles pistes théoriques de manière à maximiser l'information extraite de ces nouvelles données.Après une introduction générale sur la physique des CRs, nous nous concentrons sur les espèces dites primaires, qui sont produites directement par les SNRs. De la nature discrète des SNRs et de la méconnaissance quasi-complète de leurs positions et de leurs ages résulte une incertitude théorique qui nécessite d'être estimée pour la prédiction des flux observés sur Terre. Jusqu'alors ces prédictions se contentent de calculer la moyenne d'ensemble de ce flux. Dans cette partie nous exposons la théorie statistique que nous avons élaborée, permettant de calculer la probabilité d'une déviation du flux mesuré par rapport à la moyenne d'ensemble. Nous sommes amenés à utiliser une version généralisée du théorème de la limite centrale, avec lequel nous montrons que la loi de probabilité est intimement reliée à la distribution des sources et qu'elle converge vers une loi stable. Cette dernière diffère de la loi gaussienne par sa queue lourde en loi de puissance. Le cadre théorique développé ici peut non seulement être étendu à d'autres observables du rayonnement cosmique, mais aussi enrichi en incluant une description plus complète des corrélations entre les sources. De plus, la méthode que nous avons développée peut être appliquée à d'autres problèmes de physique/astrophysique impliquant des distributions à queue lourde.Deuxièmement nous nous penchons sur les CRs dits secondaires (comme le bore), qui sont produits par les collisions des espèces primaires avec le milieu interstellaire. Plus précisément nous nous concentrons sur le rapport du flux du bore sur celui du carbone qui est traditionnellement utilisé pour comprendre la propagation des CRs. Ainsi, tout porte à croire que les mesures extrêmement précises de ce rapport nous donneraient de fortes contraintes sur les scénarios de propagation. Malheureusement il n'en est rien et nous montrons que le calcul théorique dépend fortement de certaines hypothèses telles que le lieu de production des secondaires et le choix du jeux de sections efficaces d’interaction. Nous estimons à au moins 20 % les incertitudes sur les paramètres de propagation dérivés jusqu'à maintenant. Grâce aux nouvelles données de l'expérience AMS-02, nous présentons les points de départ de notre nouvelle analyse pour laquelle nous utilisons le code semi-analytique USINE.Finalement, dans une troisième partie, nous utilisons ces données de précision pour réactualiser les analyses portant sur la recherche indirecte de matière noire. En effet, les CRs d'antimatière seraient -au même titre que le bore- des particules secondaires. La prédiction de leur fond astrophysique repose sur une connaissance précise de la propagation des CRs et de leurs interactions dans la Galaxy. Nous les traitons ici sous les hypothèses habituelles et réévaluons les flux de positrons et d'antiprotons à la lumière des nouvelles données d'AMS-02. Nous discutons ensuite les conséquences pour la matière noire et les possibles explications astrophysiques d'éventuels excès observés
A hundred years ago, pioneering observations of air ionization revealed that the Earth is showered with particles coming from the Galaxy and beyond. Because of their high energies, these particles coined cosmic-rays are still a crucial tool in the field of particle physics, complementary to man-made accelerators. From an astrophysical point of view, the origin of cosmic-rays and the mechanisms which accelerate them are still very poorly known. The present paradigm involves sporadic production associated with the expanding shock waves from dying stars (SNRs).Recent experiments (notably PAMELA and, more recently, AMS-02) are ushering us into a new era of measurements of cosmic-ray fluxes with greatly reduced statistical uncertainties. In this dissertation, we propose and investigate new theoretical refinements of our predictions to fully benefit from these advances.After a general introduction on cosmic-ray physics, we first focus on the so-called primary species which are directly produced by SNRs. In this context of precision measurements, the discreteness of the sources in space and time, together with a substantial ignorance of their precise epochs and locations (with the possible exception of the most recent and close ones) may lead to significant uncertainties in the predictions of the fluxes at the Earth. So far, the conventional approach just relied on average trends. Here, we elaborate a statistical theory in order to compute the probability for the actual flux to depart from its ensemble average. Using the generalized version of the central limit theorem, we demonstrate that the probability distribution function of the flux is intimately related to the source distribution and follows a stable law with a heavier tail than the Gaussian distribution. Our theoretical framework can not only be extended to other cosmic-ray observables, such as the lepton flux, but also can be enriched to include a more comprehensive description of the correlations between the sources. Moreover the method which we have developed may be applied to a variety of problems in physics/astrophysics involving heavy tail distributions.Secondly, we concentrate on secondary CRs, like the boron nuclei, which are thought to be produced only by the collisions of cosmic-rays on the interstellar medium. More precisely, the ratio of the boron to carbon fluxes is a traditional tool used to understand and gauge the propagation of cosmic-rays in the Galaxy. Hence a very precise measurement of this ratio should imply stringent constraints on the propagation scenario. However we show that its theoretical derivation strongly depends on where these secondary species are produced as well as on the chosen set of nuclear cross-sections. Hence we assess at the 20% level the theoretical uncertainties on the so far derived propagation parameters. As new data from AMS-02 were freshly released, we present the starting points of a comprehensive new analysis for which we use the semi-analytical code USINE.Finally these high precision measurements offer new opportunities for a number of astroparticle problems, such as indirect dark matter searches which is the main thrust of the third part of the thesis. Antimatter cosmic rays are thought to be secondary species and their relatively low fluxes make them a channel of choice to look for rare processes such as dark matter annihilation. Nonetheless, the predictions of the expected backgrounds rely on a precise modeling of cosmic-ray propagation and interactions in the Galaxy. We treat them under commonly used simplified assumptions and discuss two studies where we re-evaluate the anti-proton and the positron fluxes in the light of the new AMS-02 data. Then we discuss the implications for dark matter and astrophysical explanations

The cubic-kilometer sized IceCube neutrino observatory is burieddeep in the glacial ice at the Earth’s South Pole. Its low-energyextension array DeepCore enables physicists to search indirectlyfor light Dark Matter (DM) particles with masses as low as tensof GeV/c2 situated within our home galaxy, the Milky Way. GeVneutrinos could be produced through DM particle annihilations,propagating to the Earth where they could be detected by IceCube. This licentiate thesis presents a search for Weakly Interacting Mas-sive Particles (WIMPs) with masses as low as 30 GeV/c2 in theGalactic center (GC) using the 79-string configuration of the IceCubeneutrino detector. Data from 319.7 live-days have been analyzedusing a cut-and-count analysis approach, and found to be consistentwith the background-only hypothesis with expected backgroundfrom atmospheric muons and neutrinos. Thus, upper limits wereset on the velocity averaged DM annihilation cross-section. The Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU) as apossible future neutrino detector within DeepCore would reducethe neutrino energy detection threshold to a few GeV. In additionto the data analysis with DeepCore, a sensitivity study has beenconducted to investigate the performance of PINGU for indirectDM searches in the GC and the Sun. In the Sun WIMPs could begravitationally captured through elastic scattering off nucleons. Inthis thesis, we derive PINGU sensitivities for the velocity averagedDM annihilation cross-section of WIMPs in the GC, and for theSpin-Dependent (SD) and Spin-Independent (SI) WIMP-protonscattering cross-sections, under the assumption of thermodynamicequilibrium between the WIMP capturing and annihilation rate inthe Sun.
IceCube

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics is widely taken as an elegant effective theory of nature at the electroweak scale, with new physics expected at higher energy. Collider searches and other experimental inputs play a vital role in our hunt for the unknown physics, offering great insights along the way and eventually establishing the extension to the SM. Here we present our studies on prospects of direct and indirect searches for three types of models beyond the SM. The Inert Doublet Model (IDM) extends the SM electroweak sector by an extra Higgs doublet with a Z₂-symmetry. We first examine the IDM dilepton signal at the LHC with a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV and find it exceeding SM backgrounds at 3σ–12σ significance level, with 100 fb⁻¹ integrated luminosity. We further show that it is possible to obtain the IDM trilepton signal at the 5σ significance level, with an integrated luminosity of 300 fb⁻¹. The Left-Right Twin Higgs (LRTH) model solves the little Hierarchy problem by taking the SM Higgs as a pseudo-Goldstone boson from the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry. We focus on the discovery potential of the heavy top quark partner in the LRTH model at the LHC. With a luminosity of 30 fb⁻¹ at the early stage of the LHC operation, we conclude that the heavy top partner could be observed at a significance level above 5σ. Supersymmetric extensions of the SM enable cancellations among loop corrections to the Higgs mass from bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom, leading to a solution to the well-known Hierarchy problem. However, the supersymmetry has to be broken by certain mechanism. We present an exploration of the B-physics observables and electroweak precision data in three distinct soft supersymmetry-breaking scenarios. Projection for future sensitivities of the precision data is also explored.

Many astronomical observations, including rotational curve measurements of stars and the analysis of the cosmic microwave background, suggest the existence of an invisible matter density content in the Universe, commonly called Dark Matter (DM). Possibly, DM could be of particle nature, where Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) could be a viable DM candidate. The cubic-kilometer sized IceCube neutrino observatory located at the Earth’s South Pole can search indirectly for the existence of DM by detecting neutrino signals from WIMP self-annihilation in the Galactic center (GC) and the Galactic halo (GH). Two main physics analyses were developed and conducted to search indirectly for WIMP self-annihilation in the Milky Way’s GC and GH. Signal hypotheses for different WIMP annihilation channels, WIMP masses and DM halo profiles were tested. The results of both analyses were compatible with the background-only hypothesis for all tested signal hypotheses. Thus, upper limits at the 90% confidence level (C.L.) on the thermally averaged DM self-annihilation cross-section, <σΑv>, were set. Dedicated atmospheric muon veto techniques have been developed for the GC search making such an IceCube analysis possible for the first time. The GC analysis utilized data from 319.7 days of live-time of the IceCube detector running in its 79-string configuration during 2010 and 2011, whereas the GH analysis utilized pre-existing data samples developed for point-like neutrino sources with a live-time of 1701.9 days between 2008 and 2013. The most stringent upper limits on <σΑv> were obtained for WIMP annihilation directly into a pair of neutrinos assuming a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) DM halo profile. Conducting the GC and GH analyses for this annihilation channel an upper limit on <σΑv> as low as 4.0 · 10-24 cm3 s-1 and 4.5 · 10-24 cm3 s-1 is set for a 65 GeV and 500 GeV massive WIMP, respectively. These galactic indirect neutrino searches for DM are complementary to the indirect gamma-ray DM searches usually performed on extra-galactic targets like spheroidal dwarf galaxies.

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.

During the PhD I made my research following two principal research activities: a technological part relative to the development and the production of reflective units for the second MAGIC telescope and a second part more scientific, focused on strategy of indirect detection of dark matter with the MAGIC telescope.
Durante la Scuola di Dottorato ho svolto la mia ricerca seguendo due attivita' principali: una parte tecnologica relativa allo sviluppo e la produzione di unita' riflettenti per il secondo telescopio MAGIC ed una parte maggiormente scientifica sulle strategie di rivelazione indiretta di Materia Oscura con il Telescopio MAGIC.

Erste Anzeichen für die Existenz von Dunkler Materie wurden 1933 entdeckt. Der Astrophysiker Fritz Zwicky beobachtete die Geschwindigkeitsverteilung im Coma Cluster und fand dabei heraus, dass 400 mal mehr Materie im Galaxie Haufen sein muss, damit dieser gravitativ gebunden sein kann oder der Galaxie Haufen würde sich aufösen. Trotz erheblicher Bemühungen über die letzten 80 Jahre ist nicht viel über Dunkle Materie bekannt. Das einzige was man weiÿ ist, dass Dunkle Materie gravitativ aber nicht elektromagnetisch wechselwirkt und Dunkle Materie stellt den gröÿten Bestandteil der Materie im Universum da. Doch derzeitige Experimente die nach Dunkler Materie suchen, sowohl direkte Suchen als auch indirekte, beginnen sensitiv genug zu werden um interessante Parameterbereiche von Dunkle Materie Kandidaten zu untersuchen wie das leichteste Super-symmetrische Teilchen, was bedeutet, dass die Entdeckung von Dunkler Materie in der nahen Zukunft sein könnte. In dieser Arbeit wird eine Signalsummierung von H.E.S.S. Zwerg Galaxien Daten durchgeführt und obere Ausschlussgrenzen berechnet. Weiterhin wird die Leistung einer Dunklen Materie Suche im galaktischen Zentrum durch CTA präsentiert für verschiedene mögliche Teleskop Anordnungen und verschiedene Annihilation Kanäle. Die Ergebnisse werden zeigen, dass CTA in der Lage sein wird geschwindigkeitsgemittelte Annihilations Wirkungsquerschnitte von 3 * 10^-26 cm^3s^1 und geringer, der geschwindigkeitsgemittelte Annihilations Wirkungsquerschnitt der für schwach wechselwirkende Dunkle Materie erwartet wird, in 100 h zu erreichen. Diese Beobachtungszeit kann innerhalb von ein bis zwei Jahren erreicht werden.
First indications for the existence of Dark Matter appeared in 1933. The astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky observed the velocity dispersion of the Coma Cluster and found out that 400 times the visible mass must be contained in the galaxy cluster or the cluster could not be gravitationally bound and would disperse.Despite extensive efforts over the last 80 years not much is known about Dark Matter. The facts known are that Dark Matter interacts via gravitation, does not interact electromagneticly and is the main constituent of matter. But current experiment searching for Dark Matter directly and indirectly begin to reach sensitivities that can probe interesting parameter spaces for Dark Matter candidates like the lightest supersymmetric particle, meaning the first Dark Matter detections could happen in the near future.In this thesis a dwarf stacking analysis for Dark Matter signal search using H.E.S.S. data is performed and a upper limit is calculated. Furthermore the prospect for a Dark Matter search with CTA in the galactic center region of the Milky Way is presented for different candidate arrays and different annihilation channels. The results will show that CTA will be able to reach velocity annihilation below 3 *10^-26 cm^3s^-1, the velocity annihilation crosssection expected for a weakly interacting Dark Matter particle, within 100 h of observation which can reasonably be acquired within one to two years.

Cette thèse présente un ensemble de travaux d'analyse de données et phénoménologiques relatifs à deux sujets majeurs de l'astronomie y: la recherche indirecte de matière noire et l'étude de la région du Centre Galactique avec le réseau de télescopes H. E. S. S. La recherche de matière noire se concentre sur l'étude de deux classes d'objets privilégiées: les galaxies naines et les amas de galaxies. Les études détaillées des observations des galaxies naines Sculptor et Carina, et de l'amas de galaxies Fornax par H. E. S. S. Sont présentées. En l'absence de détection des signaux significatifs venant de ces objets, des contraintes sur la section de efficace d'annihilation particules de matière noire ont été calculées. D'autre part, les contraintes H. E. S. S. En direction de la galaxie naine Sagittarius sont mises à jour en lumière des profils de halos de matière noire plus réalistes. Le potentiel de la future génération de télescopes Cherenkov au sol, CTA (Cherenkov Télescope Array), à la détection d'un signal d'annihilation de matière noire et des signaux astrophysiques standard est aussi défini. Le deuxième thème de cette thèse est consacré à l'étude détaillée de la région du Centre Galactique observée par H. E. S. S. Entre 2004-2011, L'analyse et la reconstruction spectrale de la source centrale et de l'émission diffuse dans cette région sont présentées. La soustraction de la contamination spectrale de l'émission diffuse dans le spectre de HESS J1745-290 permet de retrouver le spectre intrinsèque de la source centrale. L'analyse de la morphologie spectrale de la région d'émission diffuse suggère finalement que plusieurs accélérateurs peuvent être à l'origine de cette émission
This thesis presents a series of data analysis and phenomenological studies on two main subject of the y-ray astronomy: the indirect searches of dark matter, and the study of the Galactic Center region with the H. E. S. S. Telescope array. The indirect dark matter searches focus on the study of two classes of targets: dwarf galaxies and galaxy clusters. A detailed study of the H. E. S. S. Observations towards the Sculptor and Carina dwarf galaxies, and towards the Fornax galaxy cluster are presented. In the absence of a significant signal coming from these object, constraints on the annihilation cross section of dark matter particle candidates are derived. The current H. E. S. S. Dark matter constraints towards the Sagittarius are updated in light of recent realistic dark matter halo models. A prospect on the sensitivity of the future generation of Cherenkov telescopes, Le. CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array), for the detection of a dark matter annihilation signal and conventional y-ray emissions is also given. The second subject of this thesis provides a detailed analysis of the very high energy y-ray data from the Galactic Center region observed by the H. E. S. S. Experiment throughout the 2004-2011 period. The analysis and spectral reconstruction of the central source and the diffuse emission around this regioi are presented. A spectral subtraction of the diffuse emission contribution to the HESS J1745-2 spectral is performed and allows to recover the intrinsic central source spectrum. The spectra morphology of the diffuse emission region suggests the possibility of various accelerators being responsible for the observed emission

Identifying what makes up the Dark Matter is a long-standing problem to which the abundance of gravitational and cosmological evidence fails to answer. Indirect detection techniques have the aim to unveil the nature of Dark Matter by catching and identifying the products of potential decays and/or annihilations. The work exposed in this thesis is in line with this strategy and has for common thread the quest for line(-like) features in the extraterrestrial fluxes of gamma-rays and neutrinos. The motivation behind this specific interest is that, due to the absence of astrophysical counterparts beyond the GeV scale, these features constitute the ultimate probes (also called “smoking guns”) of the existence of Dark Matter.The thesis is organized in three Parts, the first of which is an introduction to the different facets of the Dark Matter conundrum and why it is not a trivial issue. The works involving gamma-ray line considerations are gathered in Part II, and those exclusively focusing on neutrino lines in Part III.Part II focuses on the effective field theory of Dark Matter decay, first in the context of millicharged particles decaying to gamma-ray lines, and then in the context of (neutral and millicharged) Dark Matter decays involving the simultaneous emission of gamma-ray and neutrino lines. In both cases, the simultaneous emission of cosmic rays is unavoidable and the decays are constrained in a multi-messenger fashion. The complementarity of the results obtained is used to derive model-independent constraints on the Dark Matter lifetime, and shows the possibility to exclude or distinguishsome specific scenarios on the basis of an explicit experimental conjecture.After an introduction to the neutrino detection principles and to the operation of the IceCube detector, Part III focuses on two careful searches for spectral features in the neutrino spectrum. The main goal behind these analyses, conducted in two different regions of the energy spectrum but using the same likelihood ratio procedure, is to popularize dedicated energy distribution studies by showing their ability to reach sensitivity levels comparable to—sometimes even going beyond—those obtained with angular distribution studies or even in the context of gamma-ray line searches.
Option Physique du Doctorat en Sciences
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Die vorliegende Arbeit beschreibt einen semi-analytischen Ansatz zur Modellierung der Dichteverteilung von DM im Galaktischen Halo. Aus den verschiedenen Substrukturmodellen wird die γ-Strahlungsintensität, welche die Erde erreicht, berechnet. Eine Spannbreite plausibler γ-Strahlungsintensitäten aufgrund der Paarvernichtung Galaktischer DM wird vorgeschlagen, welche die Vorhersagen verschiedener früherer Studien umfasst, und es werden die durchschnittlichen Massen, Abstände und ausgedehnten Strahlungsprofile der γ-strahlungsintensivsten DM-Verdichtungen berechnet. Schließlich werden die DM-Modelle für eine umfassende Berechnung der Nachweismöglichkeit Galaktischer Substrukturen mit CTA verwendet. Die instrumentelle Sensitivität zum Nachweis der γ-strahlungsintensivsten DM-Substruktur wird für eine mit CTA geplanten großflächigen Himmelsdurchmusterung außerhalb der Galaktischen Ebene berechnet. Die Berechnung wird mit CTA Analyse- Software und einer Methode durchgeführt, welche auf einer Likelihood beruht. Eine alternative, ebenfalls Likelihood-basierte Analysemethode wird entwickelt, mit welcher DM-Substrukturen als äumliche Anisotropien im Multipolspektrum des Datensatzes einer Himmelsdurchmusterung nachgewiesen werden können. Die Analysen ergeben, dass eine Himmelsdurchmusterung mit CTA und eine anschließende Suche nach γ-Strahlung von DM-Substrukturen Wirkungsquerschnitte für eine Paarvernichtung in der Größenordnung von (σv) > 1 × 10−24 cm3 s−1 für eine DM-Teilchenmasse von mχ ∼ 500 GeV auf einem Vertrauensniveau von 95% ausschließen kann. Diese Sensitivität ist vergleichbar mit Langzeitbeobachtungen einzelner Zwerggalaxien mit CTA. Eine modellunabhängige Analyse ergibt, dass eine Himmelsdurchmusterung mit CTA Anisotropien im diffusen γ-Strahlungshintergrund oberhalb von 100 GeV für relative Schwankungen von CPF > 10−2 nachweisen kann.
In the current understanding of structure formation in the Universe, the Milky Way is embedded in a clumpy halo of dark matter (DM). Regions of high DM density are expected to emit enhanced γ-radiation from the DM relic annihilation. This γ-radiation can possibly be detected by γ-ray observatories on Earth, like the forthcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). This dissertation presents a semi-analytical density modeling of the subclustered Milky Way DM halo, and the γ-ray intensity at Earth from DM annihilation in Galactic subclumps is calculated for various substructure models. It is shown that the modeling approach is able to reproduce the γ-ray intensities obtained from extensive dynamical DM simulations, and that it is consistent with the DM properties derived from optical observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. A systematic confidence margin of plausible γ-ray intensities from Galactic DM annihilation is estimated, encompassing a variety of previous findings. The average distances, masses, and extended emission profiles of the γ-ray-brightest DM clumps are calculated. The DM substructure models are then used to draw reliable predictions for detecting Galactic DM density clumps with CTA, using the most recent benchmark calculations for the performance of the instrument. A Likelihood-based calculation with CTA analysis software is applied to find the instrumental sensitivity to detect the γ-ray-brightest DM clump in the projected CTA extragalactic survey. An alternative Likelihood-based analysis method is developed, to detect DM substructures as anisotropies in the angular power spectrum of the extragalactic survey data. The analyses predict that the CTA extragalactic survey will be able to probe annihilation cross sections of ⟨σv⟩ > 1 × 10−24 cm3 s−1 at the 95% confidence level for a DM particle mass of mχ ∼ 500 GeV from DM annihilation in substructures. This sensitivity is compatible with long-term observations of single dwarf spheroidal galaxies with CTA. Independent of a particular source model, it is found that the CTA extragalactic survey will be able to detect anisotropies in the diffuse γ-ray background above 100 GeV at a relative amplitude of CP_F > 10−2.

While the dark matter has so far only revealed itself through the gravitational influence it exerts on its surroundings, there are good reasons to believe it is made up by WIMPs – a hypothetical class of heavy elementary particles not encompassed by the Standard Model of particle physics. The Inert Doublet Model constitutes a simple extension of the Standard Model Higgs sector. The model provides a new set of scalar particles, denoted inert scalars because of their lack of direct coupling to matter, of which the lightest is a WIMP dark matter candidate. Another popular Standard Model extension is that of supersymmetry. In the most minimal scenario the particle content is roughly doubled, and the lightest of the new supersymmetric particles, which typically is a neutralino, is a WIMP dark matter candidate. In this thesis the phenomenology of inert scalar and supersymmetric dark matter is studied. Relic density calculations are performed, and experimental signatures in indirect detection experiments and accelerator searches are derived. The Inert Doublet Model shows promising prospects for indirect detection of dark matter annihilations into monochromatic photons. It is also constrained by the old LEP II accelerator data. Some phenomenological differences between the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and a slight extension, the Beyond the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, can be found. Also, supersymmetric dark matter models can be detected already within the early LHC accelerator data.

In an era of unprecedented sensitivity to cosmic gamma rays, it is timely to study possible signatures rising from Dark Matter (DM) particle interactions. The aim of the present thesis is precisely devoted to that. We start by presenting a broad study on physically motivated Galactic diffuse emission models. These derive from the interaction of Galactic cosmic rays with the interstellar medium and describe the bulk of photons imprinted in the observed gamma-ray sky. We show how gamma-ray data offer a complementary deep diagnostic of the standard paradigm for Galactic cosmic-ray propagation, usually tuned on local cosmic-ray observables. We present a self-contained discussion about the inferred radial gradients in the gamma-ray data relative to the Galactic plane region, and interpret them as a strong hint in favor of a spatially varying diffusion rate for cosmic rays in the Galaxy. We corroborate this study with a set of distinctive predictions, embracing the available information on TeV high-energy photon data and the expectations for a detection of Galactic neutrino fluxes on the basis of current and future neutrino observatory sensitivities. We, then, scrutinize the claim of a gamma-ray signal from DM particle annihilation observed in the innermost central part of our Galaxy, analyzing the gamma-ray data coming from few tens of degrees around the Galactic center. We show that a spherical excess -- interpretable as the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles in the Galactic halo -- does not stand out in the data any longer when the effect of the observationally inferred high star-formation rate in this complex astrophysical environment is considered. Accounting properly for that in the injection source distribution of cosmic rays, we show that most of the "GeV excess" has a simple explanation in terms of well-motivated cosmic-ray physics. We remark, in particular, that with this correction, counts in the residual map are not only drastically reduced, but also do not spatially correlate anymore with an approximately spherical morphology. Finally, we critically reassess the DM content in the satellites of the Milky Way. In order to do that, we develop a new method, mainly based on the kinematics of the stars in these galaxies, that in the end provides a conservative estimate of the line-of-sight integrated halo profile squared for these objects, the so-called J-factor. After carrying out in detail the study case of Ursa Minor, we present here -- as last original contribution in the thesis -- a similar conservative analysis of the J-factor for the whole set of classical satellites of the Milky Way. In light of our novel approach, we conclude that these galaxies offer to us a reliable "DM laboratory" where we can probe the freeze-out mechanism of cold thermal relics in a robust and unique way.

In this thesis, we will explore direct and indirect measures of learning in a visual search task commonly called contextual cueing. In the first part, we present a review of the scientific literature on contextual cueing, in order to give the readers of this thesis a better general idea of existing evidence and open questions within this relatively new research field. The aims of our own experimental studies presented in the succeeding chapters are the following ones: (1) to replicate and extend the findings described in the various papers by Marvin Chun and various colleagues on contextual cueing of visual attention; (2) to explore the nature of memory representations underlying the observed learning effects, especially whether learning is actually implicit and whether memory representations are distinctive, episodic and instance-based or rather distributed, continuous and graded; (3) to extend the study of contextual cueing to more realistic visual stimuli, in order to test its robustness across various situations and validate its adaptive value in ecologically sound conditions;

and (4) to investigate whether such knowledge about the association between visual contexts and “meaningful” locations can be (automatically) transferred to other tasks, namely a change detection task.

In a first series of four experiments, we tried to replicate the documented contextual cueing effect using a wide range of various direct measures of learning (tasks that are supposed to be related to explicit knowledge) and we systematically varied the distinctiveness of context configurations to study its effect on both direct and indirect measures of learning.

We also ran a series of neural network simulations (briefly described in the general discussion of this thesis), based on a very simple association-learning mechanism, that not only account for the observed contextual cueing effect, but also yield rather specific predictions about future experimental data: contextual cueing effects should also be observed when repetitions of context configurations are not perfect, i.e. the networks were able to react to slightly distorted versions of repeating contexts in a similar way than they did to completely identical contexts. Human participants, we conjectured, should therefore (if the simple connectionist model captures some relevant aspects of the contextual cueing effect) become faster at detecting targets surrounded by context configurations that are only partially identical from trial to trial compared to those trials where the context configurations were randomly generated. These predictions were tested in a second series of experiments using pseudo-repeated context configurations, where some distractor items were either displaced from trial to trial or their orientation changed, while conserving their global layout.

In a third series of experiments, we used more realistic images of natural landscapes as background contexts to establish the robustness of the contextual cueing effect as well as its ecological relevance claimed by Chun and colleagues. We furthermore added a second task to these experiments to study whether the acquired knowledge about the background-target location associations would (automatically) transfer to another visual search task, namely a change detection task. If participants have learned that certain locations of the repeated images are “important”, since they contain the target item to look for, then changes occurring at those specific locations should lead to less “change blindness” than changes occurring at other irrelevant locations. We used two different types of instructions to introduce this second task after the visual search task, where we either stressed the link between the two tasks, i.e. telling them that remembering the “important” locations for each image could be used to find the changes faster, or we simply told them to perform the second task without any reference to the first one.

We will close this thesis with a general discussion, combining findings based on our review of the existing research literature and findings based on our own experimental explorations of the contextual cueing effect. By this we will discuss the implications of our empirical studies for the scientific investigation of contextual cueing and implicit learning, in terms of theoretical, empirical and methodological issues.
Doctorat en sciences psychologiques
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L'un des problèmes les plus intéressants de la physique moderne est celui de la matière noire de l'Univers, qui reste de nature insaisissable. L'existence de la matière noire est inférée par des preuves indirectes telles que les mesures des courbes de rotation des galaxies, des dispersions de vitesse des galaxies dans les amas galactiques et les effets de lentille gravitationnelle. Ces observations fournissent des preuves sur l'existence d'une matière invisible dominant notre Univers. Il n'existe cependant aucune indication claire sur sa nature. Les observations actuelles en font le constituant dominant de l'Univers, par opposition à la matière baryonique "normale". Deux solutions sont proposées pour résoudre ce mystère. La première est basée sur une modification de la loi de la gravité comme dans la dynamique newtonienne modifiée qui pourrait expliquer les divergences entre prédictions et observations de la dynamique des masses dans l'Univers. L'autre idée consiste à proposer l'existence d'une nouvelle particule massive qui n'interagit pas avec la lumière (appelée WIMP pour "Weakly Interactive Massive Particle"), mais pouvant influencer la matière lumineuse par gravité. Plusieurs théories proposent l'existence de telles nouvelles particules. La plus célèbre de ces théories est la supersymétrie, qui est une extension du Modèle Standard de la Physique des Particules. Si l'un des partenaires supersymétriques des bosons neutres est une particule stable et le plus léger de tous les superpartenaires, il devient alors un candidat idéal pour la matière noire. La supersymétrie est en général le cadre le plus favorable pour l'existence de la matière noire
The early history of modern physics have been full of problems fixed with un-orthodox yet brilliant solutions. From the Hydrogen electron orbit, black bodyradiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe, to the perihelion precession of Mercury.Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity not only solved these problems butthey opened the path to new observations and predictions about the Universe welive in and the introduction of new problems to be solved.One of the more modern problems we are facing today in physics is the largediscrepancy among measurements of the visible mass in the Universe and the pre-dictions of laws of gravity. An indisputable mass of evidence from different partsof observational cosmology is showing again and again that the observed lumi-nous mass in the Universe constitutes a tiny fraction of the matter that actuallyexists. The proposed solutions of this problem comes in two completely differentflavors. One proposed solution is that the laws of gravity are not the same in thelimit of tiny accelerations. Theories of modified gravitational dynamics proposea non-linear term in Newton law of gravity that becomes relevant at small accel-erations which in turn can explains the missing matter. The other solution to themissing matter is the introduction of new type of matter that does not interact withlight, making it invisible yet inferred to exist by its gravitational effect. The newmatter becomes a new elementary particle to be added to list of already knownelementary particles. While there are many candidates to this new elementaryparticle the favored one is called a WIMP or Weakly Interacting Massive Particle

Adaptive optics is concerned with the correction of turbulence induced aberrations and mis-alignments in optical systems. It is an expensive and complicated technology which has been developed for astronomy and defence applications. Recently, it has found a role within industry and medicine. This thesis deals with a simplified mechanism for adaptive feedback based on the analysis of distorted images, and an iterative feedback process. Simplification is achieved at the expense of speed, but there are particular applications where this technique is suitable. The one considered here is the removal of so-called non-common path errors in a traditional adaptive optics system, which can otherwise degrade the system performance.

La naturalesa de la matèria fosca (DM) de l’univers segueix essent un misteri a dia d’avui malgrat els esforços de la comunitat científica. D’entre les partícules candidates, més enllà del model estàndard de física de partícules, destaca la Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) com una de les més prometedores. S’estima la seva massa entre pocs GeV i centenars de TeV, encaixant perfectament en l’interval d’energies testejades per a la cerca indirecta de la DM. Els telescopis MAGIC, situats a l’Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, a l’illa canària de La Palma, fan cerques indirectes de les WIMP des que van entrar en funcionament. Els objectes observats més comuns amb aquest objectiu són les galàxies nanes esferoïdals (dSphs) satèl·lits de la Via Làctia i el centre galàctic amb el seu halo. En aquesta tesis presento el resultat de les cerques indirectes d’anihilació de WIMPs en tres diferents objectes d’observació (el cúmul globular M15 i les dSphs Draco i Coma Berenices), així com els resultats obtinguts a partir de la combinació de les dades de les dues dSphs estudiades i dues dSphs analitzades prèviament dins de la col·laboració MAGIC. No s’ha trobat cap senyal en qualsevol dels 4 estudis. L’estudi de M15 ha constituït un repte, debut al modest excés de densitat de DM que se suposa hi ha en aquest tipus d’objectes i a les grans incerteses sistemàtiques associades als perfils de dispersió de la velocitat de les estrelles en els seus centres. Per tal d’obtenir una estimació de les sensibilitats que es poden obtenir amb aquest tipus d’anàlisis, s’han considerat quatre diferents perfils de densitat de DM en M15. S’han obtingut límits superiors estadístics sobre la mitjana de la secció eficaç d’anihilació de WIMPs multiplicada per la velocitat (en endavant velocity-averaged cross-section) considerant perfils de densitat de DM proporcionats en els treballs de H.E.S.S. i VERITAS. Els resultats obtinguts són compatibles amb els presentats en les seves respectives publicacions. Addicionalment, s’han trobat límits superior de prova considerant perfils de densitat de M15 i del seu contingut en matèria no bariònica en un escenari d’un cos dominat per DM. Els límits obtinguts amb aquest mètode són millors que els que s’obtenen amb les més prometedores dSphs, però al mateix temps són poc realistes i proporcionen només un valor mínim de la velocity-averaged cross-section que es pot assolir en M15, a l’espera de noves mesures cinemàtiques en les seves parts centrals. Les dSphs Draco i Coma Berenices han estat observades amb els telescopis MAGIC dins d’una campanya de diversificació de fonts d’observació plurianual. S’han obtingut límits superiors realistes amb un 95% de nivell de confiança en la velocity-averaged cross-section de WIMPs. La combinació de les dades d’aquestes dues dSphs amb les de les altres dues anteriorment observades amb MAGIC (Segue 1 i Ursa Major II) ha permés de millorar la sensibilitat en la cerca indirecta d’anihilació de WIMPs. Els resultats obtinguts constitueixen el llegat de la col·laboració MAGIC en aquest camp, i són els més restrictius trobats a MAGIC i els més estrictes en l’interval de massa de WIMP ~10-100 TeV en les cerques en astrofísica de raigs gamma, arribant a límits superiors de l’ordre de 10⁻²⁴ cm³/s sobre la velocity-averaged cross-section amb un nivel de confiança del 95%. En l’última part de la tesis es presenta la meva contribució al desenvolupament i posada a punt del Barcelona Raman LIDAR, un instrument avançat i no comercial optimitzat per a la monitorització de l’atmosfera sobre el Cherenkov Telescope Array.
La naturaleza de la materia oscura (DM) en el universo sigue siendo un enigma a día de hoy a pesar los esfuerzos de la comunidad científica. Entre las partículas candidatas más allá del modelo estándar de física de partículas destaca la Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) como una de las más prometedoras. Su masa se estima entre pocos GeV y cientos de TeV, encajando perfectamente en el intervalo de energías testeadas para la búsqueda indirecta de la materia oscura. Los telescopios MAGIC, situados en el Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos en la isla canaria de La Palma, realizan búsquedas indirectas de WIMP desde que entraron en operación. Los objetos observados más comunes para tal fin son las galaxias esferoidales enanas (dSphs) satélites de la Vía Láctea y el centro galáctico y su halo. En esta tesis presento el resultado de las búsquedas indirectas de aniquilación de WIMPs en tres diferentes objetos de observación (el cúmulo globular M15 y las dSphs Draco y Coma Berenices) así como los resultados obtenidos a partir de la combinación de los datos de las dos dSphs estudiadas y dos dSphs analizadas previamente dentro de la colaboración MAGIC. No se ha encontrado ninguna señal en cualquiera de los 4 estudios. El estudio de M15 ha constituido un reto debido al modesto exceso de densidad de DM supuesto en este tipo de objetos y las grandes incertidumbres asociadas a los perfiles de dispersión de la velocidad de las estrellas en sus centros. Para obtener una estimación de las sensibilidades que se pueden obtener en este tipo de análisis, se han considerado cuatro diferentes perfiles de densidad de DM de M15. Se han obtenido límites superiores estadísticos sobre el promedio de la sección eficaz de aniquilación de WIMPs multiplicada por la velocidad (en adelante velocity-averaged cross-section) considerando los perfiles de densidad de DM proporcionados en los trabajos de H.E.S.S. y VERITAS. Los resultados obtenidos son compatibles con los presentados por sus respectivas publicaciones. Adicionalmente, se han encontrado límites superiores de prueba considerando perfiles de densidad de DM obtenidos a partir de la convolución del perfil de densidad de M15 y de su contenido de materia no bariónica en un escenario de un cuerpo dominado por DM. Los límites obtenidos con este método son mejores que los que se obtienen con las más prometedoras dSphs, pero al mismo tiempo son poco realistas y proporcionan solamente un valor mínimo de la velocity-averaged cross-section alcanzable en M15, a la espera de nuevas medidas cinemáticas en sus partes centrales. Las dSphs Draco y Coma Berenices han sido observadas con los telescopios MAGIC dentro de una campaña de diversificación de fuentes de observación plurianual. Se han obtenido límites superiores realistas con un 95% de nivel de confianza en la velocity-averaged cross-section de WIMPs. La combinación de los datos de estas dos dSphs con los de las otras dos dSphs anteriormente observadas con MAGIC (Segue 1 y Ursa Major II) ha permitido mejorar la sensibilidad en la búsqueda indirecta de aniquilación de WIMPs. Los resultados obtenidos constituyen el legado de la colaboración MAGIC en este campo, y son los más restrictivos alcanzados en MAGIC y los más estrictos en el intervalo de masa de WIMP ~10-100 TeV en las búsquedas en astrofísica de rayos gamma, llegando a límites superiores del orden de 10⁻²⁴ cm³/s sobre la velocity-averaged cross-section con un nivel de confianza del 95%. En la última parte de la tesis se presenta mi contribución al desarrollo y puesta a punto del Barcelona Raman LIDAR, un instrumento avanzado y no comercial optimizado para la monitorización de la atmósfera encima del Cherenkov Telescope Array.
The nature of Dark Matter (DM) in the Universe is still an enigma at present day, despite the efforts of the scientific community. Among the favorite DM particle candidates beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is of the most promising. Predicted to have a mass between few GeV and hundreds of TeV, it fits perfectly in the energy range tested by indirect dark matter searches with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. The MAGIC telescopes, located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, on the Canary Island of La Palma, perform indirect DM searches for WIMPs since their very beginning. Among the targets observed, dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies (dSphs) and the Galactic Center and halo are the most common, both expected to be embedded in a high DM overdensity. In this thesis I present the outcome of indirect WIMP annihilation searches from three different observation targets (the globular cluster M15 and the dSphs Draco and Coma Berenices) together with the results obtained by a combination of data from the two dSphs studied in this thesis and two dSphs previously analyzed by the MAGIC collaboration. No signal has been observed in any of the four searches. The study of M15 has been a challenge due to its relatively low DM overdensity predicted and the large systematic uncertainties resulting from the current lack of star velocity dispersion profiles at its core. In order to get an estimate of the sensitivities achievable with this type of analyses, four different realizations of the M15 DM density profile were investigated. Statistical upper limits on the velocity-averaged WIMP annihilation cross-section have been obtained with the use of the DM profiles provided by the H.E.S.S. and VERITAS experiments. The results obtained are compatible with those presented in their respective publications. Further toy statistical upper limits have been obtained taking into account DM density profiles from a convolution of the M15 density profile and its expected non-baryonic matter content in a scenario of DM domination. The limits retrieved with this method are better than the most promising ones from dSphs, but at the same time systematically unreliable, and provide only a minimum value of the velocity-averaged cross-section attainable in M15, awaiting for new kinematic measurements at globular clusters cores. The dSphs Draco and Coma Berenices were observed during the past years with the MAGIC telescopes within a multi-year diversification campaign. Reliable 95% CL upper limits on the velocity-averaged WIMP annihilation cross-section have been retrieved and are presented in this thesis. The data of these two dSphs are also combined with the ones of the two other dSphs previously observed with the MAGIC telescopes, namely Segue 1 and Ursa Major II, to achieve the best sensitivity for indirect WIMP DM annihilation searches. The results obtained constitute the MAGIC collaboration legacy in this field, and are the most constraining reached by MAGIC and the most stringent in the ~ 10-100 TeV WIMP DM mass interval in gamma-ray astrophysics searches so far, reaching upper limits of the order of 10⁻²⁴ cm³/s for the velocity-averaged cross-section. In the last part of this thesis, I present my contribution to the development and set up of the Barcelona Raman LIDAR, an advanced and no commercial instrument optimized for the atmospheric monitoring above the future Cherenkov Telescope Array.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Programa de Doctorat en Física

In large organizations, quickly finding the right expert is important. An expert finding system can help users with this by letting them search for experts matching expertise queries. Automatic expert finders, which are the focus of this report, accomplish this by analyzing indirect expertise evidence contained in documents, for instance those stored on an organization’s internal network. The goal of this report is to discover the best way to construct such a system, and analyze how its performance compares to that of a system based on manually supplied expertise information. To determine this, several expert finding algorithms were implemented, and evaluated on two different corpora. It was found that the best approach, both in terms of performance and ease of implementation, is to use documentbased algorithms, i.e algorithms that work by first searching for documents related to a query, and then analyzing the retrieved documents to find presumably relevant persons. Furthermore, the best of the implemented expert finders was compared to an existing manually curated system. The automated expert finder outperformed the manual one substantially in terms of recall, while maintaining high precision. It was concluded that automatic expert finders perform well enough to be useful in practice, and that the workload needed to implement such a system is small. As such, they can provide either a feasible alternative, or a valuable complement, to manual systems.
I stora organisationer är det viktigt att snabbt kunna hitta rätt expert. Ett sätt att hjälpa användare med detta är expertsökarsystem, vilka låter användare söka efter personer matchande en given expertis. I fokus för denna rapport är automatiska expertsökarsystem, vilka bygger upp expertismodeller från indirekta källor, så som dokument lagrade på ett intranät. Vi undersöker hur ett sådant system bäst konstrueras, samt hur dess prestanda förhåller sig jämfört med ett system baserat på manuellt skapad expertisinformation. För att utröna detta implementerades ett antal olika expertsökare vars prestanda testades på två olika dataset. Det visade sig att s.k dokumentbaserade algoritmer fungerar bäst, både med hänsyn till kvalitén på sökresultaten och till mängden arbete som krävs för implementation av systemet. I en dokumentbaserad expertsökare används en klassisk dokumentsökmotor för att skapa en lista av dokument relevanta för en expertissökfrågan, varpå dessa dokument analyseras för att hitta potentiella experter. Den bästa av de implementerade expertsökarna jämfördes med ett existerande system baserat på manuellt ifylld expertisinformation. Det visade sig att det automatiska systemet kunde lokalisera en betydligt större andel av de faktiska experterna än det manuella systemet, med bibehållen hög precision. Vi drar slutsatsen att automatiska expertsökarsystem fungerar bra i praktiken, samtidigt som arbetsbördan för implementationen av ett sådant system är liten. Således kan de fungera antingen som ett värdefullt komplement eller som ett realistiskt alternativ till manuella system.

In this work I aim to point out some theoretical issues and caveats in DM search. In the first chapters I review the evidence for DM existence, the DM candidates and the different kinds of DM experimental search. The bulk of the work investigates three different topics. In the first topic, concerning neutrino from the Sun, I show the fact that evaporation does not allow to probe part of the parameter space, in the low mass range. In the second one, I show that, like in the case of the detected positron excess, that could be explained both by DM or by astrophysical source, even a possible excess of antiprotons could suffer from the same kind of degeneracy. In the third part, I consider DM search at collider. I point out some problems about using the EFT low-energy approximation at LHC, arising from the fact that the experimental bounds and the average energy of collisions at LHC are of the same order of magnitude. Afterward, to take this fact into account, I propose a method to rescale experimental bounds, and I review an alternative way of analyzing experimental results, that is using Simplified Models. Finally, I also show which is the part of the parameter space for both Simplified Models and EFT giving the DM the right relic abundance, in the case of thermal freeze-out.

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Bachelors
Engineering and Computer Science
Computer Science

In this thesis, I use 10 populations of Drosophila melanogaster, each fixed for a different visible recessive mutation to investigate two outstanding issues in sexual selection research. First, to quantifty indirect benefits of female mate choice and explore the nature of genotype x environment interactions for different fitness components, I estimated the effects of these mutations on male sexual fitness and productivity in the population's ancestral laboratory environment, as well as a novel food environment. Indirect benefits in the ancestral environment were lacking, suggesting that a good genes process is not acting. Cross-environment correlations were not conducive to indirect benefits following colonization of a novel environment. Second, to investigate the contribution of variable search effort to variance among males in mating success, I conducted mate choice trials to compare the relative mating success of mutant males in small vs. large arenas. Sexual selection against mutant males was stronger when search effort was included than when it was excluded, indicating that varying ability to find mates may increase the strength of selection against deleterious alleles.

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O presente estudo tem como escopo compreender as reações e respostas entre famílias de vítimas de homicídios perpetrados por policiais militares em Salvador. Para atingir os objetivos dessa pesquisa, foram selecionados 12 casos de homicídios para a investigação e coleta de dados: 8 casos acompanhados por duas organizações não governamentais, 1 assistido por um projeto social e os demais, 3 casos, foram selecionados entre aqueles em que os familiares das vítimas não receberam ou, atualmente, não recebem assistência de redes sociais e institucionais de apoio. São casos de homicídios, predominantemente, de jovens, de 15 a 24 anos, perpetrados por policiais militares em serviço e fora de serviço. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de entrevistas não estruturadas (abertas), semiestruturadas, observação direta e análise documental. Como ponto de partida, o estudo tece uma discussão acerca do enfrentamento dos homicídios no contexto baiano, a partir da biopolítica de segurança pública desenvolvida no estado da Bahia e a violência letal oficial produzida. Como resultado, a pesquisa discute uma vitimização indireta por homicídio, marcada por uma violação do Eu dos familiares das vítimas, num nível bastante profundo: o Eu foi “abatido” pela perda violenta, inexplicavelmente repentina e considerada injusta. Diante desse impacto, a perda configurou um longo e complexo processo de mudanças em suas vidas, assinalado por fases. Primeiramente, uma fase de confusão foi experienciada a partir de uma série de alterações significativas e inesperadas promovidas em seu cotidiano. Uma fase de desorganização configurou-se quando eles começaram a reagir, reconhecendo os problemas advindos com a morte do membro familiar. E esta reação atinge a fase de reorganização por meio dos sentidos atribuídos à perda e a canalização da dor e dos sentimentos negativos que os sobrecarregam emocionalmente – como a raiva, ódio e a vingança. A pesquisa procura demonstrar que nesse processo, a busca por justiça, junto ao sistema de justiça criminal, exerceu um papel essencial. Ela emergiu no processo de reação a perda, como uma resposta a violência oficial perpetrada contra o ente querido, e contribuiu, ainda que de forma ambígua e dolorosa, na recuperação de si e da vida cotidiana dos familiares. A guisa de conclusão, o estudo apresenta um padrão de homicídio em que a magnitude dos efeitos da vitimização indireta é mais elevada e as reações mais complexas. A pesquisa evidencia que, ao lado das perdas materiais e alterações psicoemocionais significativas e da busca por justiça, os familiares das vítimas vivenciaram mudanças no próprio Eu e em seu esquema de imagens para julgar a si mesmo, aos outros e o mundo que vive. Eles vivenciam episódios de abatimento do Eu e de sua representação social. This project has the objective to understand the reactions and responses among families of victims murdered by military police in Salvador. To achieve the objectives of this research, we selected twelve homicide cases for examination and data collection: eight cases assisted by two non-governmental organizations, one assisted by a social project, and the remaining three cases were selected from those in which relatives of the victims have not received or are not currently receiving assistance from social and institutional support networks. The homicide cases are predominantly of youngsters, 15-24 years old, perpetrated by military police on duty and off duty. Data collection was done through unstructured interviews (open interviews), semi-structured, direct observation and document analysis. As a starting point, the study initiates a discussion about coping with homicide in the context of Bahia, based on the biopolitics of public security developed by the state and the official lethal violence produced. As a result, the research presents indirect victimization by homicide, marked by a violation of the victims' families self, at a deep level: the self was "hit" by the violent loss, inexplicably sudden and considered unfair. Given this impact, the loss set up a long and complex process of changes in their lives, marked by phases. First, a phase of confusion was experienced due to a number of significant and unexpected changes occurring in their daily lives. A phase of disorganization unfolded when they began to react, recognizing the problems caused by the death of the family member. And this reaction reaches the stage of reorganization through the senses attributed to the loss and the channeling of pain and negative feelings that overwhelm them emotionally - as anger, hatred and revenge. The research aims to demonstrate that this process, the search for justice, through the criminal justice system, played an essential role. It emerged in the process of reacting to loss, as a response to official violence perpetrated against the loved one, and contributed, although in an ambiguous and painful way, to recover oneself and the family’s everyday life. As a conclusion, the study shows a homicide pattern in which the magnitude of the indirect victimization effects is higher and the reactions are more complex. The research shows that, alongside the material losses and significant psycho-emotional changes and the search for justice, the families of the victims experienced changes in their own self and on their image scheme to judge oneself, others and the world that live in. They experience episodes of collapse of the self and their social representation.

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate the practical possibilities of holding arms companies liable under the common law of torts as a possible instrument in support of the enforcement of public international law and international human rights law. The United Kingdom is used as primary example because its tort law has been widely spread across the world by colonialism, so any case that is successful in the UK may be successful in other common law countries with (relatively) little modification. This increases the relevance of this dissertation.
Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2007.
A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Prof Alejandro Lorite of the Department of Law, American University - Cairo.
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/
Centre for Human Rights
LLM

L’Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) é un rivelatore per raggi cosmici (CR) progettato e costruito da una collaborazione internazionale di 56 istituti e 16 paesi ed installato il 19 Maggio del 2011 sulla Stazione Spaziale Internazionale (ISS). Orbitando intorno alla Terra, AMS-02 sará in grado di studiare con un livello di accuratezza mai raggiunto prima la composizione dei raggi cosmici, esplorando nuove frontiere nella fisica delle particelle, ricercando antimateria primordiale ed evidenze indirette di materia oscura. Durante il mio lavoro di tesi, ho utilizzato il software GALPROP per studiare la propagazione dei CR nella nostra Galassia attraverso il mezzo interstellare (ISM), cercando di individuare un set di parametri in grado di fornire un buon accordo con i dati preliminari di AMS-02. In particolare, mi sono dedicata all’analisi del processo di propagazione di nuclei, studiando i loro flussi e i relativi rapporti. Il set di propagazione ottenuto dall’analisi é stato poi utilizzato per studiare ipotetici flussi da materia oscura e le possibili implicazioni per la ricerca indiretta attraverso AMS-02.

The hadronic decay D0 → KS pi+ pi- provides direct access to the measurement of the mixing parameters of the neutral charm meson system and allows to test for indirect CP violation. Mixing is a time-dependent phenomenon for which the time evolution of the transition amplitude of a D0 (anti-D0) decay to the final state KS pi+ pi- has to be considered. The parameters driving those time-dependent oscillations are x and y, depending on the masses and widths of the physical eigenstates. The CP violation parameters |q/p| and phi describe the superposition of the flavour eigenstates D0 and anti-D0 and of the physical eigenstates D1 and D2. By measuring the time- and phase-space dependent distribution of D0 → KS pi+ pi- decays, the mixing parameters can be extracted and a search for indirect CP violation can be performed. This thesis reports a measurement of the mixing parameters and the preparations of a measurement of the CP violation parameters on data collected with the LHCb experiment in 2011 and 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3/fb. The D0 and anti-D0 mesons are required to originate from a semileptonic decay of a B meson. The parameters of interest are extracted from a fit in D0 decay time and the Dalitz variables. The phase-space distribution of D0 → KS pi+ pi- decays is modelled by expressing the three-body decay as a succession of two-body decays. The decay amplitude of a D0 or anti-D0 meson into KS pi+ pi- final state is a superposition of all possible intermediate resonances and the single resonances interfere with each other across the phase-space.

La première partie de ce document résume les arguments astrophysiques permettant de supposer l’existence de matière noire. Le modèle cosmologique ΛCDM y est présenté ainsi que la notion de section efficace d’auto-annihilation de matière noire. Les galaxies naines satellites de la Voie Lactées, sources de notre étude, sont introduites dans un second chapitre. Après un rappel des grandes structures qui composent l’univers, les problématiques liées aux galaxies naines sont abordées : nombre de ces galaxies, distribution de la densité de matière noire en leur sein et forces de marées dues à la Voie Lactée.La seconde partie discute de la modélisation de la densité de matière noire dans les galaxies naines. La méthode employée, utilisant l’équation de Jeans et la dispersion des vitesses projetées des étoiles, y est présentée. Trois profils de matière noire sont retenus : NFW, Burkert et Einasto ainsi que quinze galaxies naines. La production de neutrinos lors de l’auto-annihilation de matière noire est ensuite abordée. Les spectres énergétiques des neutrinos produits sont générés avec le logiciel PYTHIA puis comparé avec d’autres résultats pour le centre galactique. Vingt-trois hypothèses de masse du candidat de matière noire sont choisies, allant de 25 GeV/c2 `a 100 TeV/c2. Cinq canaux d’auto-annihilation sont sélectionnés pour l’analyse : χχ → b¯b, W+W−, τ+τ−, μ+μ−, νμ ¯ νμ. La troisième partie comporte une présentation du détecteur utilisé pour l’étude, le télescope à neutrinos ANTARES. Trois algorithmes de reconstruction développés et utilisés au sein de la collaboration y sont également détaillés : AAFit, BBFit et GridFit. L’analyse des données d’ANTARES ayant pour but de mettre en évidence un excès de neutrinos caractéristique de l’auto-annihilation de matière noire est résumée dans le sixième et dernier chapitre. Aucun excès n’ayant été observé, une limite sur la section efficace d’auto-annihilation de matière noire a été déterminée
The first part of this document summarizes the astrophysical arguments to suppose the existence of dark matter. The cosmological model ΛCDM is presented as well as the concept of cross section of dark matter self-annihilation. Dwarf galaxies satellites of the Milky Way, the sources of our study are introduced into a second chapter. After recalling the large structures that make up the universe, the issues related to dwarf galaxies are addressed : missing satellites problem, distribution of dark matter density within them and tidal forces due to the Milky Way. The second part discusses the modeling of the dark matter density in dwarf galaxies. The methodology, using the Jeans equation and dispersion of projected stars velocities, is presented. Three dark matter profiles are retained : NFW, Burkert and Einasto and fifteen dwarf galaxies.Neutrino production during the self-annihilation of dark matter is then addressed. The energy spectra of neutrinos are generated with PYTHIA software and compared with other results for the galactic center. Twenty-three assumptions of mass dark matter candidates are chosen, ranging from 25 GeV/c2 100 TeV/c2. Five self-annihilation channels are selected for analysis : χχ → b¯b, W+W− τ+τ− μ+μ− νμ ¯ νμ. The third part includes a presentation of the detector used for the study, the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Three reconstruction algorithms developed and used in collaboration are also detailed : AAFIT, BBFit and GridFit. The analysis of data ANTARES aimed to find a neutrinos excess characteristic of dark matter self-annihilation is summarized in the sixth and final chapter. No excess was observed, a limit on the cross section of dark matter self-annihilation was determined

In dieser Dissertation werden Daten aus drei Jahren vom vollständig fertiggestellten IceCube-Detektor benutzt um nach Neutrinos zu suchen, die in Dunkle-Materie-Annihilationen in fünf nahegelegen Zwerggalaxien, der M31 Galaxie und dem Virgo Galaxienhaufen produziert wurden. Um die Messung durchzuführen, wurde zunächst eine Ereignis-Selektion angewandt, die es ermöglicht, die von aus der Atmosphäre stammenden Teilchen dominierte Rate der Ereignisse von zirka 100 Hz auf 0.5 mHz zu reduzieren. Danach wird eine Maximum-Likelihood-Schätzer eingesetzt um zu bestimmen ob es ein Überschuss von Neutrinos aus der Richtung der jeweiligen Quellen gibt, der mit einen Energie-Spektrum übereinstimmt das mann für Dunkle-Materie-Annihilationen erwartet. Für die M31 Galaxie und den Virgo Galaxienhaufen wurde zusätzlich zu dieser Suche nach einer Punktquelle auch eine Suche für ein erweitertes Signal durchgeführt. In allen untersuchten Fällen ist das Ergebnis der Analyse vereinbar mit einer Messung der Hintergrund-Hypothese, und daraus wurden Limits für den über die Geschwindigkeit gemittelten Wirkungsquerschnitt für Dunkle-Materie-Annihilation für verschiedene Endprodukte bestimmt. Für hohe Dunkle-Materie-Massen gibt es ein Überschuss von Neutrinos aus drei der Zwerggalaxien. Dieser Überschuss hat einen globalen p-Wert von 4.9% und ist damit nicht statistisch signifikant. Die Suche für ein erweitertes Signal von der M31 Galaxie und dem Virgo Galaxienhaufen ergab keinen Überschuss. Die Limits auf den über die Geschwindigkeit gemittelten Wirkungsquerschnitt für Dunkle-Materie-Annihilation haben sich im Vergleich zu vorherigen IceCube-Analysen signifikant verbessert, um bis zu einer Größenordnung. Diese ist teilweise auf Grund Verbesserungen für diese Analyse besonders: eine verbesserte Ereignis-Selektion, und für die Analyse ist eine Maximum-Likelihood-Schätzer eingesetzt statt eine Analyse in ein Suchfenster.
In this thesis, three years worth of data from the completed IceCube detector is used to search for neutrinos produced in dark matter annihilations in five nearby dwarf galaxies, the M31 galaxy and the Virgo cluster. To do this, an event selection which was developed for this analysis is applied to the data sample to reduce the atmospheric background rate from approximately 100 Hz to less than 0.5 mHz. Then, an unbinned maximum likelihood method is used to determine whether there is an excess of neutrinos from the direction of the considered galaxies or galaxy cluster that has an energy spectrum that matches the spectrum expected from dark matter annihilations. For the M31 galaxy and the Virgo cluster an extended signal with a two-dimensional Gaussian shape and width up to 5 degrees is also considered. In all cases, the results of the analysis are compatible with the background-only hypothesis and limits are set on the velocity-averaged dark matter annihilation cross section for different annihilation channels. For high dark matter masses there is an excess of neutrinos from three of the five dwarf galaxies. This excess has a global p-value of 4.9%, so it is not statistically significant. The search for an extended emission from the direction of the M31 galaxy and the Virgo cluster also did not result in an excess: in both cases the global p-value is larger than 50%. The limits on the velocity-averaged dark matter annihilation cross section have improved significantly (up to an order of magnitude) with respect to the previous IceCube analysis considering these same targets. This is partially due to improvements to this analysis specifically: an improved event selection was used to select the final data sample and an unbinned maximum likelihood method was used for the final analysis instead of a binned analysis method.

Orientador: Ivan Deconto
Dissertaçăo (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Cięncias Agrárias, Programa de Pós-Graduaçăo em Ciencias Veterinárias. Defesa: Curitiba, 2004
Inclui bibliografia

[EN] Neutrino astronomy is a booming field in astroparticle physics. Due to the particular characteristics of neutrinos, these particles offer great advantages as probes for the study of the far and high-energy Universe. It is extensively accepted by the scientific community that a multi-messenger approach with the combination of information provided by neutrinos, photons and charged particles (cosmic rays) is possible to obtain a more complete image of the fundamental astrophysics processes taking place in our Universe. Since neutrinos are neutral and very weak interacting particles they can reach the Earth from astrophysical sources without deflection by magnetic fields and almost without energy losses and absorption, contrarily to the rest of messengers. The other side of the coin of neutrino properties is that detection of neutrinos is very challenging and big highly instrumented detection volumes are needed. Natural media (deep sea, lakes or ice in the Antarctica) host this kind of experiments using the water (or ice) as target material where the neutrino interaction is produced. ANTARES is the first undersea neutrino telescope, located at 2475 m depth in the Mediterranean Sea. ANTARES is optimized for optical detection of the Cerenkov light induced by relativistic muons produced by high energy neutrino interactions near the detector. The charge, position and arrival time of the photons to the optical modules which compose the detector allows the muon track reconstruction, and thus, knowing the neutrino coming direction. Some information of the event energy is also derived. ANTARES is also hosting the AMADEUS experiment which is investigating the feasibility of the acoustic detection of Ultra-High Energy (UHE) neutrinos. The framework of this thesis is the ANTARES experiment. As commonly done in the thesis developed in this experiment (and in this field), the work has been divided in two different areas. On the one hand, a part more devoted to technological aspects related to the detector and, on the other hand, a part dedicated to ANTARES data analysis. The first part of the thesis is focused in the development of a calibrator able to reproduce the acoustic signal generated in the UHE neutrino interaction with a water nucleus which, roughly speaking, generates a highly directive bipolar acoustic pulse. Having a good calibrator is crucial to test and tune the telescope response for this kind of signals. The second part of the thesis, the data analysis part, is centred in the analysis of the ANTARES data in order to constrain possible Dark Matter models. This work is focused on the detection of products resulting of the Dark Matter annihilation trapped in the centre of the Sun. Specifically, the Secluded Dark Matter (SDM) model has been tested by the detection of di-muons (co-linear muon pair) and/or neutrinos coming from Sun direction. Broadly speaking, this model is based on the idea of the existence of a mediator resulting of the Dark Matter annihilation which, subsequently, would decay into standard model particles as muons or neutrinos. These models have been proposed in order to explain some experimental "anomalies" observed, such as the electron-positron ratio spectrum detected in satellites, measured recently with high accuracy by AMS-II. The study of this thesis constitutes the first search of experimental evidences of this kind of models in neutrino telescopes.
[ES] La astronomía de neutrinos es un campo en auge dentro de la Física de Astropartículas. Los neutrinos ofrecen grandes ventajas como sondas para estudiar el Universo lejano y de alta energía. Es extensamente aceptado que mediante la combinación de la información que proporcionan los neutrinos junto a la obtenida mediante fotones de alta energía (rayos gamma) y partículas cargadas (rayos cósmicos) se podría obtener una imagen más completa de los procesos astrofísicos fundamentales que tienen lugar a lo largo de nuestro Universo.La razón fundamental por la que los neutrinos son tan altamente valorados como mensajeros es la baja interacción con el medio que los rodea. Al ser partículas sin carga interactúan muy débilmente con la materia, por ello pueden escaparse de la fuente donde se han producido y, al contrario de lo que ocurre con el resto de mensajeros, pueden llegar a la Tierra sin ser desviados por los campo magnéticos y sin prácticamente pérdida de energía. Esta misma razón que los hace tan valorados es a su vez la que los hace tan difíciles de detectar. Se impone la necesidad de construir detectores de grandes volúmenes, del orden del km3, altamente instrumentados. Se utilizan medios naturales (en el fondo del mar, en lagos o en enterrados en el hielo de la Antártida) aprovechando el agua (o hielo) como material diana donde se espera que interaccione el neutrino. ANTARES es el primer telescopio submarino de neutrinos construido en el fondo del mar Mediterráneo. Está optimizado para la detección óptica de la luz Cherenkov inducida por los muones relativistas producidos en la interacción de neutrinos de alta energía en los alrededores del detector. La información de la carga, posición y tiempo de llegada de los fotones a los fotomultiplicadores que componen el detector permite tanto la reconstrucción de la trayectoria del neutrino como el conocimiento de su energía. Además, ANTARES acoge el experimento AMADEUS mediante el cual se está investigando y testeando la detección acústica de neutrinos de muy alta energía que, al interaccionar en el agua, producen un pulso termo-acústico que se pretende registrar con una red de hidrófonos. El trabajo desarrollado en esta tesis se engloba bajo el marco del experimento ANTARES. Como es común en las tesis desarrolladas en este experimento, el trabajo se ha dividido en dos áreas diferenciadas: por un lado, una parte de enfoque más tecnológico y, por otro lado, una parte analítica de datos tomados por el telescopio. La primera parte de la tesis está centrada en el desarrollo de un calibrador capaz de reproducir la señal acústica que se emite en la interacción de un neutrino de alta energía con un núcleo de agua que, generalizando, es un pulso bipolar altamente directivo. El disponer de un buen calibrador es clave a la hora de testear la detección acústica en el telescopio y poder sintonizar y "entrenar" los los receptores para este tipo de señales. La segunda parte de la tesis se ha centrado en el análisis de datos registrados por ANTARES con el fin de contrastar posibles modelos astrofísicos para la búsqueda de materia oscura. Este trabajo ha focalizado en la detección de los productos de la aniquilación de materia oscura atrapada en el centro del Sol. Se ha testeado el modelo de Secluded Dark Matter (SDM) a través de la detección de di-muones (pareja de muones co-lineales) y neutrinos en la dirección del Sol. A grandes rasgos, este modelo se basa en la idea de la existencia de un mediador resultado de la aniquilación de materia oscura que posteriormente decaería en partículas del modelo estándar como muones o neutrinos. Estos modelos han sido propuestos con el fin de explicar ciertas 'anomalías' experimentales observadas, tales como el espectro del flujo de positrones detectado en satélites, medido recientemente con gran precisión por AMS-II. realizado en esta tesis constituye la primera búsqueda de evidencias
[CAT] L'astronomia de neutrins és un camp en auge dins la Física d'Astropartícules. Els neutrins ofereixen grans avantatges com a sondes per estudiar l'Univers llunyà i d'alta energia. Es extensament acceptat que mitjançant la combinació de la informació proporcionada pels neutrins junt a la obtinguda mitjançant fotons d'alta energia (rajos gamma) i partícules carregades (rajos còsmics) es podria obtindre una imatge més completa dels processos astrofísics fonamentals que es donen al llarg del nostre Univers. La raó fonamental per la qual els neutrins són altament valorats com a missatgers és la baixa interacció amb el medi que els envolta. Al ser partícules sense càrrega interactuen molt dèbilment amb la matèria, per això poden escapar-se de la font on s'han produït i, al contrari del que ocorre amb la resta de missatgers, poden arribar a La Terra sense desviar-se pels camps electromagnètics i sense pràcticament pèrdua d'energia. Aquesta mateixa raó que els fan tan valorats és al mateix temps la que els fa tan difícil de detectar. S'imposa la necessitat de construir detectors amb grans volums de detecció, de l'ordre del km3, altament instrumentats. S'utilitzen medis naturals (al fons de la mar, en llacs, al gel de l'Antàrtida) aprofitant l'aigua (o el gel) com a material diana on interaccionen el neutrins. ANTARES és el primer telescopi submarí de neutrins construït al fons de la mar Mediterrània. Està optimitzat per a la detecció òptica de la llum de Cherenkov induïda pels muons relativistes produïts en la interacció de neutrins d'alta energia als voltants del detector. La informació de la carrega, posició i temps d'arribada dels fotons als fotomultiplicadors que composen el detector permet tant la reconstrucció de la trajectòria del neutrí, amb gran resolució angular, com el coneixement de la seua energia. A més, ANTARES acull l'experiment AMADEUS mitjançant el qual s'està investigant i testejant la detecció acústica de neutrins de molt alta energia, que, al interaccionar a l'aigua produeixen un pols termo-acústic que es pretén registrar amb una xarxa d'hidròfons. El treball dut a terme en esta tesi s'engloba baix el marc de l'experiment ANTARES. Com es comú en les tesis desenvolupades en aquest experiment, el treball s'ha dividit en dues àrees diferenciades: per una banda una part d'enfocament mes tecnològic i, d'altra banda, una part analítica de les dades preses pel telescopi. La primera part de la tesi està centrada en el desenvolupament d'un calibrador capaç de reproduir la senyal acústica que es genera en la interacció d'un neutrí d'alta energia amb un nucli de l'aigua que, generalitzant, és un pols bipolar altament directiu. Disposar d'un bon calibrador es clau a l'hora de testejar la detecció acústica al telescopi i poder sintonitzar i "entrenar" els receptors a aquest tipus de senyals. La segona part de la tesi, amb caràcter d'anàlisi de dades, s'ha centrat en l'anàlisi de les dades registrades per ANTARES amb el fi de contrastar possibles models astrofísics per a la recerca de matèria fosca. Aquest treball es centra en la detecció dels productes d'aniquilació de matèria fosca atrapada al centre del Sol. En concret, s'ha testejat el model de Secluded Dark Matter (SDM) a través de la detecció de di-muons (parell de muons co-lineals) i neutrins en la direcció del Sol. A grans trets, aquest model es basa en la idea de l'existència d'un mediador resultat de l'aniquilació de matèria fosca que posteriorment decauria en partícules del model estàndard com muons o neutrins. Aquests models han sigut proposats amb la fi d'explicar certes "anomalies" experimentals observades, tals com l'espectre del flux de positrons detectat en satèl¿lits, mesurat recentment amb gran precisió per AMS-II. L'estudi realitzat en esta tesi constitueix la primera recerca d'evidències experimentals d'aquest tipus de models en telescopis de neutrins.
Adrián Martínez, S. (2015). Design and Development of an Acoustic Calibrator for Deep-Sea Neutrino Telescopes and First Search for Secluded Dark Matter with ANTARES [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/48877
TESIS

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Este trabalho propõe analisar o fenômeno da terceirização desenvolvido ao longo das duas últimas décadas em Bio-Manguinhos. Trata-se de um estudo de caso realizado na unidade de produção de vacinas e reagentes para diagnóstico da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Inicialmente foi realizado um estudo de cenário, analisando a política de gestão do trabalho desenvolvida pelo Estado brasileiro para as instituições públicas. A seguir, a análise passou a verificar a inserção da Fiocruz nessas políticas, desde a sua criação e no decorrer de vigência de diferentes formas de contratação, alternando da extrema rigidez para a total flexibilidade sempre com foco na gestão do trabalho, e, como essas políticas se refletiram no desempenho de Bio-Manguinhos. Baseado no contexto da conformação do Estado e na análise do desempenho da unidade, o trabalho critica a falta de planejamento e de prospecção dessas políticas, que favoreça a inovação de processos, produtos e procedimentos e o desempenho pleno de uma unidade de produção de insumos para a saúde, tão necessários ao atendimento das necessidades da população brasileira. Critica também, a ausência de um modelo de Estado consolidado que sirva de arcabouço à formulação dessas políticas. Devido às fortes críticas dos órgãos de controle acerca da extrapolação dos limites da terceirização praticada nas últimas duas décadas e à falta de definição clara desses marcos legais, o trabalho apresenta uma metodologia baseada nas atribuições dos cargos do plano de carreiras da Fiocruz e culmina com a apresentação de uma matriz de atribuições passíveis de serem realizadas por contratação indireta. Conclui pela necessidade de convivência de dois quadros de trabalhadores: um permanente formado por servidores, estáveis e de carreira e outro flexível, executado por contratação indireta, de caráter eventual, temporário ou de apoio às atividades relacionadas à missão de Bio-Manguinhos. O trabalho ainda sugere a aplicação da mesma metodologia às demais unidades da Fiocruz e que a instituição afirme, frente aos órgãos de controle, quais atividades que ela precisa manter no quadro de servidores permanente e quais ela quer delegar a terceiros sem contudo, ferir a legislação vigente. Por fim, constata-se que a metodologia apresentada ameniza, mas não resolve o problema, dessa forma, recomenda-se à Fiocruz buscar mecanismos que altere o modelo de gestão pelo qual está submetida a fim de viabilizar as duas formas de incorporação de mão-de-obra.

This thesis addresses two limitations of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, namely dark matter (DM) and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Specifically, we study the Higgs portal DM models where the DM-SM interaction proceeds via a SM Higgs boson. Such models lead to a rich DMphenomenology that can be tested at collider, indirect and direct search experiments. This thesis is composed of three parts. In the first part, we provide a brief background on the SM and follow the road that led to the Higgs boson discovery. We also present evidence for the existence of DM and motivate the observed baryon asymmetry in our universe. In the second part of this thesis, we present results from a combined analysis of effective scalar, vector, Majorana and Dirac fermion Higgs portal DM models. For the fermion models, we include both CP-even and CP-odd terms. The parameter space of all models is constrained using the DM relic density, limits on the Higgs invisible branching ratio from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well as indirect and direct DM detection experiments. In line with previous studies, we find that direct detection experiments will continue to exclude much of the model parameter space. For the CP-odd case, indirect searches are the only probe for accessing the high mass range of the theory. We also study the scalar singlet model in light of electroweak baryogenesis (EWBG). By requiring a large scalar-SM Higgs coupling, the model can explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry via a strong first-order electroweak phase transition. This has important implications for EWBG that can be tested using collider, gravitational wave (GW) and direct detection signals. We find that the new scalar cannot simultaneously account for the observed DM abundance and matter-antimatter asymmetry. However, a large portion of the model parameter space can lead to a sizeable GW signal. In the third part of this thesis, we focus on global fits. In particular, we perform a global fit of the extended scalar singlet model with a fermionic DM candidate. In this model, the new scalar mixes with the SM Higgs boson, leading to two scalar mediators. By coupling to the new scalar, a Dirac fermion field can play the role of a DM candidate. From our 7-dimensional scans of the model using only the EWBG constraint, we find that EWBG is viable in all parts of the model parameter space provided the scalar-fermion DM coupling gS ≤ 5.62. On the other hand, the combined constraints from the DM relic density, direct detection limit from the PandaX-II experiment, EWBG, electroweak precision observables and Higgs searches at colliders place an upper limit on some of the model parameters. We also compute the GW spectra of viable points and check their detection prospects at current or future GW experiments. Lastly, we present preliminary results from global fits of the vector and Dirac fermion Higgs portal DM models using the GAMBIT software. After motivating and outlining the benefits of using GAMBIT for global fits, we perform scans of the model parameter space using the same set of constraints, model parameter ranges, nuclear and astrophysical parameter values as our previous study. For the Dirac fermion model, we allow the scalar-pseudoscalar mixing parameter ⇠ to vary in our scans. We find that our preliminary results using GAMBIT are in good agreement with those obtained in our previous study. This is used to motivate a future study of these models using the GAMBIT software.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Physical Sciences, 2018

The aims of this dissertation are: firstly, to examine indirect impoliteness in real-life data, and secondly, to test the most crucial and influential impoliteness models when compared with the results of the data analysis. The object of my analysis is a collection of 596 conflictive exchanges from Allegro.pl (a popular Polish Internet shop and auctioning service(, which can be found in the appendix. A conflictive exchange is understood as a sequence made of a negative comment posted by the buyer and a reply to that comment posted by the seller. Another objective is to demonstrate the richness of the strategies employed in the exchanges and the complexity of impolite implicatures. I also intend to discuss the specific nature of face and intentionality, particularly the professional aspect of face, and to describe how this face aspect is attacked, threatened or enhanced. The first, theoretical chapter provides an overview of the key politeness and impoliteness theories in pragmatics to date. It opens with a summary of politeness models as the starting point for studying impoliteness as a separate phenomenon in interaction. Impoliteness theories are divided into two large groups, which derive from two views on communication: the Gricean view and the Relevance-Theoretic and cognitive view. After a presentation of Grice-based models, I discuss the most important theories of politeness and impoliteness which were formulated in response to the Gricean model of communication and which are cognitive or Relevance Theory-based. The chapter also contains a preliminary critical evaluation of the models discussed and their possible usefulness for the data analysis. The second chapter starts with a detailed description of the data. Next, the data is discussed from the point of view of two crucial methodological tools: discourse analysis and linguistic indirectness. Here, I summarise the most prominent approaches towards both phenomena and select those that best justify the status of the data as an example of discourse and of indirectness respectively. The third chapter is the data analysis proper, with a classification of indirect impoliteness strategies into three large categories (speech acts, rhetorical devices and linguistic means) and a detailed discussion of every single strategy with examples from the appendix. I also explain how these strategies help in deriving impolite implicatures and how they affect the sellers’ face. The last chapter critically assesses the key (im)politeness models in light of the results of the data analysis. I focus on the relationship between the seller and the buyer, power and intentionality. Finally, I devote a separate section to the discussion of face in literature to date as regards professional competence, good reputation and reliability as a business person. At this point, I suggest distinguishing one subtype of face within Lim and Bower’s (1991) Competence Face, namely, professional face, as this particular face aspect is threatened, challenged and defended in the data. Przedstawiona przeze mnie praca doktorska poświęcona jest nieuprzejmości językowej pośredniej w oparciu o analizę danych. Obiektem badania są dane językowe pochodzące z polskiego sklepu i serwisu aukcyjnego Allegro.pl, a konkretnie wymiany komentarzy zamieszczonych przez użytkowników po zakończonych nieudanych transakcjach. Pojedyncza wymiana komentarzy, określona przeze mnie jako wymiana konfliktowa (conflictive exchange), to inaczej para złożona z negatywnego komentarza zamieszczonego przez kupującego oraz z odpowiedzi na tenże komentarz autorstwa sprzedawcy. W dysertacji zbadane zostało 596 wymian konfliktowych, które zawarte są w dodatku. Praca składa się z czterech rozdziałów. W pierwszym, teoretycznym rozdziale dokonuję szczegółowego przeglądu najważniejszych teorii uprzejmościowych i nieuprzejmościowych. Najpierw opisuję kluczowe teorie uprzejmościowe, ponieważ to z nich wywodzą się teorie nieuprzejmościowe. Następnie dokonuję podziału teorii nieuprzejmości na trzy grupy. Pierwszą grupę stanowią teorie oparte na modelu komunikacji językowej Grice’a. W drugiej grupie opisane są modele uprzejmości wywodzące się z Teorii Relewancji. Ostatnią grupę stanowią stosunkowo najnowsze teorie nieuprzejmości, oparte na Teorii Relewancji oraz podejściu kognitywnym. Rozdział kończy wstępna selekcja modeli, które mogą okazać się najbardziej użyteczne w późniejszej analizie. W rozdziale drugim prezentuję dane i opisuję wymianę konfliktową, czyli przyjętą przeze mnie podstawową jednostkę analityczną. W dalszej jego części uzasadniam status danych jako przykładu dyskursu oraz pośredniości językowej. W tym celu omawiam najważniejsze podejścia do analizy dyskursu, wybierając te, które najlepiej potwierdzają dyskursywną naturę danych. Następnie dokonuję przeglądu najważniejszych teorii dotyczących pośredniości językowej i selekcji modelu, który najskuteczniej objaśnia to zjawisko w zestawieniu z danymi. Rozdział trzeci poświęcony jest analizie danych i strategii pośredniego wyrażania nieuprzejmości, które można w nich zaobserwować. Strategie dzielę na trzy kategorie: aktów mowy, środków retorycznych oraz środków językowych. W ramach każdej kategorii wyodrębniam podkategorie odpowiadające pojedynczym strategiom językowym. Omawiając przykłady, opisuję również mechanizm powstawania nieuprzejmych implikatur. Rozdział trzeci zamyka tabela ze statystyką występowania poszczególnych strategii w danych. Rozdział czwarty poświęcony jest wynikom badania, jak również krytycznemu osądowi najważniejszych teorii uprzejmościowych i nieuprzejmościowych pod kątem ich funkcjonalności w analizie zgromadzonych danych. W dyskusji omawiam następujące czynniki: władza, relacja między sprzedającym a kupującym, strategie, intencjonalność oraz podejście do zjawiska pośredniości. Osobna sekcja rozdziału czwartego odnosi się do rozumienia twarzy w kontekście kompetencji zawodowych. Po dokonaniu przeglądu najważniejszych modeli twarzy oceniam, czy i jak omawiają one aspekt profesjonalizmu. Następnie proponuję wyodrębnienie osobnego aspektu twarzy w ramach modelu Lima i Bowersa (1991), a mianowicie podtypu twarzy kompetencyjnej (Competence Face), nazwanego przeze mnie twarzą profesjonalną (‘professional face’), gdyż w zgromadzonych danych to właśnie ten aspekt twarzy jest atakowany, podbudowywany i ratowany.

The objective of this research was to develop, evaluate, and understand a new heuristic algorithm for solving the spatial harvest-scheduling problem. The new algorithm, indirect search, is a combination of a greedy heuristic and a neighborhood search. It was developed with the intention of quickly computing near-optimal solutions to large harvest-scheduling problems where harvest activities are treated as 0-1 variables. For this study, the algorithm solved two harvest-scheduling problems constrained by even-flow and two-period adjacency constraints: 1) a set of small tactical problems comprising 625 harvest-units scheduled over ten one-year periods; and 2) a strategic planning problem comprising 3,857 harvest-units scheduled over twenty ten-year periods. Excellent solutions to the tactical problem took 2 minutes and 42 seconds to compute and were superior to those calculated by implementations of a tabu search and a simulated annealing algorithm. The solution to the strategic problem was computed in 63 minutes and scheduled 86.9% of a linear programming model's total volume. The nature of the efficiency of this algorithm is discussed in some detail and it is also shown that the general strategy of indirect search can be applied to other combinatorial optimization problems. The indirect search algorithm performed well on the models tested thus far. These results warrant further research on: 1) applying indirect search to harvest-scheduling problems with more complex forms of spatial constraints; and 2) evaluating the efficiency of the indirect search strategy in its application to other combinatorial optimization problems.

碩士
國立臺灣師範大學
物理學系
105
The cosmic ray p ̄/p data from 20 to 450 GeV measured by AMS-02 can be interpreted in terms of DM. By using the GALPROP code, the propagation with DM annihilating to anti-protons is calculated based on the conventional model. The b ̄b, uu ̄ and W+W− final states are considered with different DM masses and annihilating cross-section as free parameters. To see the goodness of fit, the chi-squared test will be used. Once the best-fit parameters are found, the possibility of DM can be discussed.

Dunkle Materie ist ein zentraler Bestandteil der modernen Kosmologie, und damit von entscheidender Bedeutung für unser Verständnis der Strukturbildung im Universum. Das offensichtliche Fehlen von elektromagnetischer Wechselwirkung in Kombination mit unabhängigen Messungen der Energiedichte der baryonischen Materie über die Häufigkeit der primordialen leichten Elemente weisen auf eine nicht-baryonische Natur der Dunklen Materie hin. Die Wirkung der Dunklen Materie bei der Strukturbildung zeigt weiterhin dass ihre Konstituenten kalt sind, also zum Zeitpunkt des Gleichgewichts zwischen Strahlung und Materie eine Temperatur kleine als ihre Ruhemasse aufwiesen. Generische Kandidaten für das Dunkelmaterie-Teilchen sind stabile, schwach wechselwirkende Teilchen mit Ruhemassen von der Größenordnung der Skala der elektroschwachen Symmetriebrechung, wie sie zum Beispiel in der Supersymmetrie bei erhaltener R-Parität vorkommen. Derartige Teilchen frieren auf natürliche Weise im frühen Universum mit kosmologisch relevanten Reliktdichten aus. Die fortschreitende Strukturbildung im Universum führt dann zur Bildung von überdichten Regionen, in denen die Dunkelmaterie-Teilchen wiederum in signifikantem Ausmaß annihilieren können. Dadurch würde ein potentiell detektierbarer Fluß von Hochenergie-Teilchen einschließlich Photonen aus den instabilen Zwischenprodukten der Annihilationsereignisse erzeugt. Die Spektren dieser Teilchen würden Rückschlüsse auf die Masse und den Annihilations-Querschnitt als wichtige Größen zur mikrophysikalischen Identifikation der Dunkelmaterie-Teilchen erlauben. Darin liegt die zentrale Motivation für indirekte Suchen nach der Dunklen Materie. Zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt jedoch haben weder diese indirekten Suchen, noch direkte Methoden zur Suche nach elastischen Streuereignissen zwischen Dunkelmaterie-Teilchen und Atomkernen sowie Beschleunigerexperimente einen eindeutigen Nachweis von Dunkelmaterie-Teilchen erbracht. Das an sich stellt keine Überraschung dar, denn die zu erwartenden Signale sind aufgrund der schwachen Wechselwirkung der Teilchen nur von geringer Intensität. Im Falle der indirekten Suchen steht zu erwarten, dass selbst für die größten Massekonzentrationen im Universum die Stärke des Annihilationssignals der Dunklen Materie den durch astrophysikalische Quellen verursachten Untergrund nicht überschreitet. Die Möglichkeit der sicheren Unterscheidung zwischen einem möglichen Signal aus der Annihilation der Dunklen Materie und eben diesem Untergrund ist daher entscheidend für die Erfolgsaussichten der indirekten Suchen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine neuartige Suchstrategie ausgearbeitet und vorgestellt, deren zentrale Komponente die Auswahl von Beobachtungszielen aus einem breiten Massebereich, die Kontrolle der astrophysikalischen Untergründe, und die Einbeziehung von Daten aus mehreren Wellenlängenbereichen ist. Die durchgeführten Beobachtungen werden vorgestellt und interpretiert. Ein Ergebnis ist, dass die Unsicherheiten in Bezug auf die Verteilung der Dunklen Materie in Halos und deren individuelle Dichtestruktur, sowie in Bezug auf die mögliche Verstärkung des Annihilationssignales durch Substruktur, im Falle der massearmen Halos (wie zum Beispiel bei den Zwerggalaxien) größer ist als bei massereichen Halos, wie denen der Galaxienhaufen. Andererseits weisen die massereichen Halos größere Unsicherheiten in Hinblick auf die zu erwartenden rein astrophysikalischen Untergründe auf. Die Unsicherheiten in Bezug auf die bisher unbekannte Teilchenphysik jenseits des Standardmodells schließlich sind unabhängig von der Masse der beobachteten Halos. Im Zusammenspiel ermöglichen es diese unterschiedlichen Skalierungsverhalten, die globale Unsicherheit durch eine kombinierte Analyse der Beobachtungen von Halos mit verschiedenen Massen, die einen bedeutenden Teil der Masseskala abdecken, nennenswert zu reduzieren. Diese Strategie wurde im Rahmen des wissenschaftlichen Beobachtungsprogrammes des MAGIC Teleskopsystems implementiert. Es wurden Beobachtungen von Zwerggalaxien sowie des Virgo- und des Perseus-Galaxienhaufens durchgeführt. Die resultierenden Grenzen auf Gammastrahlung aus der Annihilation von schwach wechselwirkenden, massereichen Teilchen gehören zum Zeitpunkt dieser Niederschrift zu den stärksten Grenzen aus indirekten Suchen nach der Dunklen Materie. Die so gewonnenen Grenzen auf die Annihilations-Flüsse schränken einige in der Literatur diskutierte und durch aussergewöhnlich große Annihilations-Flüsse gekennzeichnete Szenarien stark ein
Cold dark matter constitutes a basic tenet of modern cosmology, essential for our understanding of structure formation in the Universe. Since its first discovery by means of spectroscopic observations of the dynamics of the Coma cluster some 80 years ago, mounting evidence of its gravitational pull and its impact on the geometry of space-time has build up across a wide range of scales, from galaxies to the entire Hubble flow. The apparent lack of electromagnetic coupling and independent measurements of the energy density of baryonic matter from the primordial abundances of light elements show the non-baryonic nature of dark matter, and its clustering properties prove that it is cold, i.e. that it has a temperature lower than its mass during the time of radiation-matter equality. A generic particle candidate for cold dark matter are weakly interacting massive particles at the electroweak symmetry-breaking scale, such as the neutralinos in R-parity conserving supersymmetry. Such particles would naturally freeze-out with a cosmologically relevant relic density at early times in the expanding Universe. Subsequent clustering of matter would recover annihilation interactions between the dark matter particles to some extent and thus lead to potentially observable high-energy emission from the decaying unstable secondaries produced in annihilation events. The spectra of the secondaries would permit a determination of the mass and annihilation cross section, which are crucial for the microphysical identification of the dark matter. This the central motivation for indirect dark matter searches. However, presently neither the indirect searches, nor the complementary direct searches based on the detection of elastic scattering events, nor the production of candidate particles in collider experiments, has yet provided unequivocal evidence for dark matter. This does not come as a surprise, since the dark matter particles interact only through weak interactions and therefore the corresponding secondary emission must be extremely faint. It turns out that even for the strongest mass concentrations in the Universe, the dark matter annihilation signal is expected to not exceed the level of competing astrophysical sources. Thus, the discrimination of the putative dark matter annihilation signal from the signals of the astrophysical inventory has become crucial for indirect search strategies. In this thesis, a novel search strategy will be developed and exemplified in which target selection across a wide range of masses, astrophysical background estimation, and multiwavelength signatures play the key role. It turns out that the uncertainties regarding the halo profile and the boost due to surviving substructure are bigger for halos at the lower end of the observed mass scales, i.e. in the regime of dwarf galaxies and below, while astrophysical backgrounds tend to become more severe for massive dark matter halos such as clusters of galaxies. By contrast, the uncertainties due to unknown details of particle physics are invariant under changes of the halo mass. Therefore, the different scaling behaviors can be employed to significantly cut down on the uncertainties in observations of different targets covering a major part of the involved mass scales. This strategical approach was implemented in the scientific program carried out with the MAGIC telescope system. Observations of dwarf galaxies and the Virgo- and Perseus clusters of galaxies have been carried out and, at the time of writing, result in some of the most stringent constraints on weakly interacting massive particles from indirect searches. Here, the low-threshold design of the MAGIC telescope system plays a crucial role, since the bulk of the high-energy photons, produced with a high multiplicity during the fragmentation of unstable dark matter annihilation products, are emitted at energies well below the dark matter mass scale. The upper limits severely constrain less generic, but more prolific scenarios characterized by extraordinarily high annihilation efficiencies

In recent years Dark Matter has become one of the major research topics in astrophysics. In one of the most popular scenario the Dark Matter is composed of WIMPs. These particles are present in massive astrophysical onbjects like the Galactic Centre and here they self-annihilate producing Standard Model particles that eventually decay producing neutrinos. In this thesis work we performed an indirect search for Dark Matter trying to detect these neutrinos with the aim of the ANTARES submarine Cherenkov neutrino telescope. The analysis and the results of this research are here presented.