High-energy neutrino signatures of dark matter

Abstract

It has been suggested that the excesses of high-energy cosmic ray electrons and positrons seen by PAMELA and the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope are evidence of dark matter annihilation or decay in the Galactic halo. To accommodate these signals however, the final states must be predominantly muons or taus. These leptonic final states will produce neutrinos, which are potentially detectable with the IceCube neutrino observatory. We find that with five years of data, IceCube (supplemented by DeepCore) can significantly constrain the relevant parameter space for both annihilating or decaying dark matter, and may be capable of discovering leptophilic dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way.

Lifetime constraints for late dark matter decay

“…[2,3], and encompasses the experimental resolution of the neutrino detectors. (We note that future measurement by IceCube+DeepCore will lead to sensitive limits at high energy [61,62].) At low energies E ν 100 MeV, the relevant data come from the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) search performed by the SK experiment [63].…”

Cascade events at IceCube + DeepCore as a definitive constraint on the dark matter interpretation of the PAMELA and Fermi anomalies

“…This will allow the galactic neutrino flux to be measured and compared against the atmospheric neutrino flux, providing a constraint on dark matter decays and annihilations. Recent work [47,48] by some of the authors shows that IceCube+DeepCore will be able to significantly constrain the parameter space of decays to µ + µ − , and rule out decays to τ + τ − and annihilation to µ + µ − as possible sources of the anomalies in less than five years of running.…”

Results from PAMELA, ATIC and FERMI: Pulsars or dark matter?

“…But, the presence of additional astrophysical sources can change the situation [137]. Independent of the gravitino model, it has been pointed out that the decays of the dark matter particle could be new signals for unification where the dark matter candidate decays through dimension-six operators suppressed by two powers of GUT scale [138][139][140]. Finally, there has also been some discussion about the possibilities of dark matter consisting of two particles, out of which one is the decaying partner.…”