First Limits on the Dark Matter Cross Section with the HAWC Observatory
  The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is a wide
field-of-view observatory sensitive to 100 GeV - 100 TeV gamma rays and cosmic
rays. The HAWC observatory is also sensitive to diverse indirect searches for
dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter
sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and
gamma-ray emission from non-luminous dark matter subhalos. Among the most
promising classes of objects for the indirect detection of dark matter are
dwarf spheroidal galaxies. These objects are expected to have few astrophysical
sources of gamma rays but high dark matter content, making them ideal
candidates for an indirect dark matter detection with gamma rays. Here we
present independent limits on the annihilation cross section for 14 dwarf
spheroidal galaxies within the HAWC field-of-view, as well as their combined
limit. These are the first limits on the annihilation cross section using data
collected with HAWC.
