Structure formation models weaken limits on WIMP dark matter from dwarf spheroidal galaxies

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies that form in halo substructures provide stringent constraints on dark matter annihilation. Many ultrafaint dwarfs discovered with modern surveys contribute significantly to these constraints. At present, because of the lack of abundant stellar kinematic data for the ultrafaints, noninformative prior assumptions are usually made for the parameters of the density profiles. Based on semianalytic models of dark matter subhalos and their connection to satellite galaxies, we present more informative and realistic satellite priors. We show that our satellite priors lead to constraints on the annihilation rate that are between a factor of 2 and a factor of 7 weaker than under noninformative priors. As a result, the thermal relic cross section can at best only be excluded (with 95% probability) for dark matter masses of ≲40 GeV from dwarf spheroidal data, assuming annihilation into bb¯.