Indirect Dark Matter Search with the MAGIC Telescope

The 17m Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) Telescope located on the canary island La Palma has the lowest energy threshold of all existing Cherenkov Telescopes. This makes MAGIC well suited to look for high energy gamma rays coming from e.g. neutralino annihilation in Dark Matter (DM) dominated source candidates like spheroidal dwarf galaxies. So far, DRACO and Willman-I have been observed for several hours each, but no signal was found and the upper limits received look not very encouraging. On the other hand, the AGILE and FERMI satellites might soon detect more promising candi- dates like hypothetical mini-halos or intermediate mass black holes. In such cases, follow up observations with Cherenkov telescopes with their much higher sensitivity above ≈ 100 GeV will be needed to fully measure the spectra and search for a characteristic energy cutoff. In case of a positive detection of a DM signal, an absolute energy calibration will be crucial. So far, Cherenkov telescopes had to rely fully on Monte Carlo simulations, resulting in a rather large systematic uncertainty. With an improved trigger electronics, MAGIC recently was able to see the cutoff energy of the Crab pulsar. Since this cutoff energy is within reach of FERMI, a cross-calibration of both instruments will soon be possible.