Constraining Dark Matter With Background Light

Photons are generic in final states of dark matter annihilation or decay, and a wide range of X-ray and gamma ray observations are available to constrain broad classes of dark matter models. In the first part of the talk I will survey some robust bounds derived in the context of light decaying dark matter. These bounds are applicable in complete generality, making no assumptions about background models or underlying astrophysics, and they can be applied both in model dependent and model independent contexts. In the latter part of the talk, I will discuss some work in progress that focuses on new bounds on annihilating dark matter that are obtained from the isotropic gamma ray background.