We study the capture and subsequent annihilation of inelastic dark matter (DM) in the Sun, placing constraints on the DM-nucleon scattering cross section from the null result of the IceCube neutrino telescope. We then compare such constraints with exclusion limits on the same cross section that we derive from XENON1T, PICO and CRESST results. We calculate the cross section for inelastic DM-nucleon scattering within an extension of the effective theory of DM-nucleon interactions which applies to the case of inelastic DM models characterised by a mass splitting between the incoming and outgoing DM particle. We find that for values of the mass splitting parameter larger than about 200 keV, neutrino telescopes place limits on the DM-nucleon scattering cross section which are stronger than the ones from current DM direct detection experiments. The exact mass splitting value for which this occurs depends on whether DM thermalises in the Sun or not. This result applies to all DM-nucleon interactions that generate DM-nucleus scattering cross sections which are independent of the nuclear spin, including the "canonical" spin-independent interaction. We explicitly perform our calculations for a DM candidate with mass of 1 TeV, but our conclusions qualitatively also apply to different masses. Furthermore, we find that exclusion limits from IceCube on the coupling constants of this family of spin-independent interactions are more stringent than the ones from a (hypothetical) reanalysis of XENON1T data based on an extended signal region in nuclear recoil energy. Our results should be taken into account in global analyses of inelastic DM models.
We study Q-ball dark matter in gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, and seek the possibility of detection in the IceCube experiment. We find that the Q balls would be the dark matter in the parameter region different from that for gravitino dark matter. In particular, the Q ball is a good dark matter candidate for low reheating temperature, which may be suitable for the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis and/or nonthermal leptogenesis. Dark matter Q balls are detectable by IceCube-like experiments in the future, which is the peculiar feature compared to the case of gravitino dark matter.
Astrophysical neutrinos travel long distances from their sources to the Earth traversing dark matter halos of clusters of galaxies and that of our own Milky Way. The interaction of neutrinos with dark matter may affect the flux of neutrinos. The recent multi-messenger observation of a high energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, can give a robust upper bound $σ/M_{dm} \lesssim 5.1\times 10^{-23} {\rm cm}^2 /$GeV on the interaction between neutrino and dark matter at a neutrino energy of 290 TeV allowing 90\% suppression. Combining the constraints from CMB and LSS at different neutrino energies, we c…
Considering the ultrahigh energy (UHE) neutrino events reported by IceCube in the PeV regime to have originated from the decay of superheavy dark matter, the IceCube UHE neutrino events are analysed and the best fit values of the two parameters namely the mass of the superheavy dark matter and its decay lifetime are obtained. The theoretical astrophysical flux is also included in theanalysis. We find that while the neutrino events in the energy range $\sim$ 60 TeV-$\sim$ 120 TeV appears to have astrophysical origin, the events in the energy range $\sim 1.2 \times 10^5$ GeV - $\sim 5 \times 10^…
We analyse the sensitivity of IceCube-DeepCore to annihilation of neutralino dark matter in the solar core, generated within a 25 parameter version of the minimally supersymmetric standard model (MSSM-25). We explore the 25-dimensional parameter space using scanning methods based on importance sampling and using DarkSUSY 5.0.6 to calculate observables. Our scans produced a database of 6.02 million parameter space points with neutralino dark matter consistent with the relic density implied by WMAP 7-year data, as well as with accelerator searches. We performed a model exclusion analysis upon th…
In the present paper, it is assumed that there exist two species of dark matter: a heavy dark matter particle (HDM) with the mass of O(TeV) which is generated in early universe and a lighter dark matter particle (LDM) which is a relativistic product due to the decay of HDM. HDMs, captured by the earth, decay to high energy LDMs, and these particles can be measured by km$^3$ neutrino telescopes, like the IceCube detector. A $Z^{\prime}$ portal dark matter model is taken for LDMs to interact with nuclei via a neutral current interaction mediated by a heavy gauge boson $Z^{\prime}$. With the diff…
The 2-years MESE IceCube events show a slightly excess in the energy range 10-100 TeV with a maximum local statistical significance of 2.3$σ$, once a hard astrophysical power-law is assumed. A spectral index smaller than 2.2 is indeed suggested by multi-messenger studies related to $p$-$p$ sources and by the recent IceCube analysis regarding 6-years up-going muon neutrinos. In the present paper, we propose a two-components scenario where the extraterrestrial neutrinos are explained in terms of an astrophysical power-law and a Dark Matter signal. We consider both decaying and annihilating Dark …
The high energy events observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have triggered many investigations interpreting the highly energetic neutrinos detected as decay products of heavy unstable Dark Matter particles. However, while very detailed treatments of the IceCube phenomenology exist, only a few references focus on the (non-trivial) Dark Matter production part -- and all of those rely on relatively complicated new models which are not always testable directly. We instead investigate two of the most minimal scenarios possible, where the operator responsible for the IceCube events is direct…
We consider a simple extension of the minimal left-right symmetric model (LRSM) in order to explain the PeV neutrino events seen at the IceCube experiment from a heavy decaying dark matter. The dark matter sector is composed of two fermions: one at PeV scale and the other at TeV scale such that the heavier one can decay into the lighter one and two neutrinos. The gauge annihilation cross sections of PeV dark matter are not large enough to generate its relic abundance within the observed limit. We include a pair of real scalar triplets $Ω_{L,R}$ which can bring the thermally overproduced PeV da…
We discuss the event rate in DeepCore array due to neutrino flux produced by annihilations and decays of galactic dark matter. This event rate is calculated with a 10 GeV threshold energy, which is smaller than the threshold energy taken in previous works. Taking into account the background event rate due to the atmospheric neutrino flux, we evaluate the sensitivity of DeepCore array for probing dark matter annihilation cross section and decay time. The sensitivity studies include the annihilation modes $χχ\to b\bar{b}, \ τ^+ τ^-$, \ $μ^+μ^-$, and $ν\barν$, and decay modes $χ\to b\bar{b}, \ τ^…
We study neutralino dark matter (DM) with large singlino fractions in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). We perform a detailed analysis of the parameter space regions of the model that give rise to such singlino-dominated neutralinos while satisfying the constraints from Higgs boson searches at the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), as well as from b-physics experiments. We find that this DM can yield a thermal relic density consistent with the Planck measurement in mass regions where the lightest neutralino of the minimal supers…
We analyze the scenario where the IceCube high energy neutrino events are explained in terms of an extraterrestrial flux due to two different components: a contribution coming from know astrophysical sources for energies up to few hundreds TeV and a top-down contribution originated by the decay of heavy dark matter particles with a mass of few PeV. Contrary to previous approaches, we consider a leptophilic three-body decay that dominates at PeV energies due to the absence of quarks in the final state. We find that the theoretical predictions of such a scenario are in a slightly better agreemen…
If dark matter particles self-interact, their capture by astrophysical objects should be enhanced. As a consequence, the rate by which they annihilate at the center of the object will increase. If their self scattering is strong, it can be observed indirectly through an enhancement of the flux of their annihilation products. Here we investigate the effect of self-interaction on the neutrino flux produced by annihilating dark matter in the center of the Sun. We consider annihilation into two channels: $W^+W^-$ (or $τ^+τ^-$ for a dark matter mass below the $W$ mass) and $b\overline{b}$. We estim…
A tentative excess in the electron spectrum at 1.4 TeV was recently reported by the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE). A non-astrophysical scenario in which dark matter particles annihilate or decay in a local clump has been invoked to explain the excess. If $e^\pm$ annihilation channels in the final states are mediated by left-handed leptons as a component in the $SU(2)_L$ doublet, neutrinos with similar energies should have been simultaneously produced. We demonstrate that generic dark matter models can be decisively tested by the existing IceCube data. In case of a non-detection, such m…
In this paper, we compare the relative sensitivities of gamma-ray and neutrino observations to the dark matter annihilation cross section in leptophilic models such as have been designed to explain PAMELA data. We investigate whether the high energy neutrino telescope IceCube will be competitive with current and upcoming searches by gamma-ray telescopes, such as the Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescopes (ACTs) (HESS, VERITAS and MAGIC), or the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, in detecting or constraining dark matter particles annihilating in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We find that after ten years of…
The origin of neutrino flux observed in IceCube is still mainly unknown. Typically two flux components are assumed, namely: atmospheric neutrinos and an unknown astrophysical term. In principle the latter could also contain a top-down contribution coming for example from decaying dark matter. In this case one should also expect prompt and secondary gammas as well. This leads to the possibility of a multimessenger analysis based on the simultaneous comparison of the Dark Matter hypothesis both with neutrino and high energy gamma rays data. In this paper, we analyze, for different decaying Dark …
Recent LHC data show hints of a new resonance in the diphoton distribution at an invariant mass of 750 GeV. Interestingly, this new particle might be both CP odd and play the role of a portal into the dark matter sector. Under these assumptions and motivated by the fact that the requirement of $SU(2)_L$ invariance automatically implies the coupling of this alleged new resonance to $ZZ$ and $Zγ$, we investigate the current and future constraints coming from the indirect searches performed through the neutrino telescope IceCube. We show that these constraints can be stronger than the ones from d…
We explore the capability of the IceCube/Deepcore array to discover signal neutrinos resulting from the annihilations of Supersymmetric WIMPS that may be captured in the solar core. In this analysis, we use a previously generated set of /sim 70k model points in the 19-dimensional parameter space of the pMSSM which satisfy existing experimental and theoretical constraints. Our calculations employ a realistic estimate of the IceCube/DeepCore effective area that has been modeled by the IceCube collaboration. We find that a large fraction of the pMSSM models are shown to have significant signal ra…
We discuss a simple non-supersymmetric model based on the electroweak gauge group $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)^\prime\times U(1)_{B-L}$ where the lightest of the right-handed neutrinos, which are part of the leptonic doublet of $SU(2)^\prime$, play the role of a long-lived unstable dark matter with mass in the multi-PeV range. We use a resonant $s$-channel annihilation to obtain the correct thermal relic density and relax the unitarity bound on dark matter mass. In this model, there exists a 3-body dark matter decay mode producing tau leptons and neutrinos, which could be the source for the PeV cascad…
The primordial heavy or superheavy dark matter that could be created during the reheating or preheating stage of the Universe can undergo QCD cascade decay process to produce leptons or $γ$ as end products. Although these could be rare decays, the energy involved in such decay process can influence 21-cm signal of hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen during the reionization era. We explore in this work, possible multimessenger signals of such heavy dark matter decays. One of which could be the source of ultra high energy neutrino (of $\sim$ PeV energy regime) signals at IceCube detector wh…
In the light of the new IceCube data on the (yet unidentified) astrophysical neutrino flux in the PeV and sub-PeV range, we present an update on the status of decaying dark matter interpretation of the events. In particular, we develop further the angular distribution analysis and discuss the perspectives for diagnostics. By performing various statistical tests (maximum likelihood, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Anderson-Darling tests) we conclude that currently the data show a mild preference (below the two sigma level) for the angular distribution expected from dark matter decay vs. the isotropic di…
We use the recent results on dark matter searches of the 22-string IceCube detector to probe the remaining allowed window for strongly interacting dark matter in the mass range 10^4<m_X<10^15 GeV. We calculate the expected signal in the 22-string IceCube detector from the annihilation ofsuch particles captured in the Sun and compare it to the detected background. As a result, the remaining allowed region in the mass versus cross sectionparameter space is ruled out. We also show the expected sensitivity of the complete IceCube detector with 86 strings.
We perform an extensive study of the DAMA annual modulation data in the context of inelastic dark matter. We find that inelastic dark matter with mass m > 15 GeV is excluded at the 95% confidence level by the combination of DAMA spectral information and results from other direct detection experiments. However, at smaller m, inelastic dark matter constitutes a possible solution to the DAMA puzzle.
A search for muon neutrinos from Kaluza-Klein dark matter annihilations in the Sun has been performed with the 22-string configuration of the IceCube neutrino detector using data collected in 104.3 days of live-time in 2007. No excess over the expected atmospheric background has been observed. Upper limits have been obtained on the annihilation rate of captured lightest Kaluza-Klein particle (LKP) WIMPs in the Sun and converted to limits on the LKP-proton cross-sections for LKP masses in the range 250 -- 3000 GeV. These results are the most stringent limits to date on LKP annihilation in the S…
Recent observations by IceCube, notably two PeV cascades accompanied by events at energies ~ (30-400) TeV, are clearly in excess over atmospheric background fluxes and beg for an astroparticle physics explanation. Although some models of astrophysical accelerators can account for the observations within current statistics, intriguing features in the energy and possibly angular distributions of the events make worth exploring alternatives. Here, we entertain the possibility of interpreting the data with a few PeV mass scale decaying Dark Matter, with lifetime of the order of 10^27 s. We discuss…
In this Letter we focus our attention on the IceCube events in the energy range between 60 and 100 TeV, which show an order 2-sigma excess with respect to a power-law with spectral index 2. We analyze the possible origin of such an excess by comparing the distribution of the arrival directions of IceCube events with the angular distributions of simply distributed astrophysical galactic/extragalactic sources, as well as with the expected flux coming from DM interactions (decay and annihilation) for different DM profiles. The statistical analysis performed seems to disfavor the correlation with …
A viable WIMP candidate, the lightest Kaluza-Klein particle (LKP), is motivated by theories of universal extra dimensions. LKPs can scatter off nuclei in large celestial bodies, like the Sun, and become trapped within their deep gravitational wells, leading to high WIMP densities in the object's core. Pair-wise LKP annihilation could lead to a detectable high energy neutrino flux from the center of the Sun in the IceCube neutrino telescope. We describe an ongoing search for Kaluza-Klein solar WIMPs with the AMANDA-II data for the year 2001, and also present a UED dark matter sensitivity projec…
We consider the capture of inelastic dark matter in white dwarves by inelastic spin-independent scattering on nuclei. We show that if the dark matter annihilates to standard-model particles then, under the assumption of primordial globular cluster formation, the observation of cold white dwarves in the globular cluster M4 appears inconsistent with explanations of the observed DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal based on spin-independent inelastic dark matter scattering. Alternatively if the inelastic dark matter scenario were to be confirmed and it was found to annihilate to standard-model par…
Galaxy clusters are one of the most promising candidate sites for dark matter annihilation. We focus on dark matter with mass in the range 10 GeV - 100 TeV annihilating to muon pairs, neutrino pairs, top pairs, or two neutrino pairs, and forecast the expected sensitivity to the annihilation cross section into these channels by observing galaxy clusters at IceCube/KM3NeT. Optimistically, the presence of dark matter substructures in galaxy clusters is predicted to enhance the signal by 2-3 orders of magnitude over the contribution from the smooth component of the dark matter distribution. Optimi…
We construct an unified model of inflation and PeV dark matter with an appropriate choice of no-scale Kähler potential, superpotential and gauge kinetic function in terms of MSSM fields and hidden sector Polonyi field. The model is consistent with the CMB observations and can explain the PeV neutrino flux observed at IceCube HESE. A Starobinsky like Higgs-sneutrino plateau inflation is obtained from the $D$-term SUGRA potential while $F$-term being subdominant during inflation. To get PeV dark matter, SUSY breaking at PeV scale is achieved through Polonyi field. This sets the scale for soft SU…
Composite dark matter is a natural setting for implementing inelastic dark matter - the O(100 keV) mass splitting arises from spin-spin interactions of constituent fermions. In models where the constituents are charged under an axial U(1) gauge symmetry that also couples to the Standard Model quarks, dark matter scatters inelastically off Standard Model nuclei and can explain the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal. This article describes the early Universe cosmology of a minimal implementation of a composite inelastic dark matter model where the dark matter is a meson composed of a light and …
The discovery by the IceCube experiment of a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux with energies of the order of PeV, has opened new scenarios in astroparticles physics. A possibility to explain this phenomenon is to consider the minimal models of Dark Matter (DM) decay, the 4-dimensional operator $\sim y_{αχ}\overline{L_{L_α}}\, H\, χ$, which is also able to generate the correct abundance of DM in the Universe. Assuming that the cosmological background evolves according to the standard cosmological model, it follows that the rate of DM decay $Γ_χ\sim |y_{αχ}|^2$ needed to get the correct DM…
Higgsino dark matter compatible with the LUX-ZEPLIN high-energy nuclear-recoil event and IceCube constraints
Weinberg Institute for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校魏因伯格理论物理研究所）；The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学奥斯卡·克莱因中心）；Nordita, Stockholm University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology（诺迪塔，斯德哥尔摩大学和瑞典皇家理工学院）
Direct detection experiments aim at the detection of dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by searching for signals from elastic dark matter nucleus scattering. Additionally, inelastic scattering in which the nucleus is excited is expected from nuclear physics and provides an additional detectable signal. In the context of a low-energy effective field theory we investigate the experimental reach to these inelastic transitions for xenon-based detectors employing a dual-phase time projection chamber. We find that once a dark matter signal is established, inelast…
We consider searches for the inelastic scattering of low-mass dark matter at direct detection experiments, using the Migdal effect. We find that there are degeneracies between the dark matter mass and the mass splitting that are difficult to break. Using XENON1T data we set bounds on a previously unexplored region of the inelastic dark matter parameter space. For the case of exothermic scattering, we find that the Migdal effect allows xenon-based detectors to have sensitivity to dark matter with ${\cal O}(\mathrm{MeV})$ mass, far beyond what can be obtained with nuclear recoils alone.
Utilizing the Fermi measurement of the gamma-ray spectrum toward the Galactic Center, we derive some of the strongest constraints to date on the dark matter (DM) lifetime in the mass range from hundreds of MeV to above an EeV. Our profile-likelihood based analysis relies on 413 weeks of Fermi Pass 8 data from 200 MeV to 2 TeV, along with up-to-date models for diffuse gamma-ray emission within the Milky Way. We model Galactic and extragalactic DM decay and include contributions to the DM-induced gamma-ray flux resulting from both primary emission and inverse-Compton scattering of primary electr…
The XENON100 and CRESST experiments will directly test the inelastic dark matter explanation for DAMA's 8.9? sigma anomaly. This article discusses how predictions for direct detection experiments depend on uncertainties in quenching factor measurements, the dark matter interaction with the Standard Model and the halo velocity distribution. When these uncertainties are accounted for, an order of magnitude variation is found in the number of expected events at CRESST and XENON100.
The recently observed IceCube PeV events could be due to heavy dark matter (DM) decay. In this paper, we propose a simple DM model with extra $U(1)_X$ gauge symmetry and bridge it with standard model particles through heavy right-handed neutrino. The Dirac fermion DM $χ$ with mass ~5 PeV can dominantly decay into a dark Higgs ($ϕ$), the SM Higgs ($h$) and a neutrino ($ν$). If the lifetime of $χ$ is ~O($10^{28}$) sec, the resulting neutrino flux can fit data consistently. The neutrino flux from $χ\rightarrow ϕh ν$ in our model is softer than the one predicted from $χ\rightarrow νh$, for example…
Dark matter particles can be gravitationally trapped by celestial bodies, motivating searches for localized annihilation or decay. If neutrinos are among the decay products, then IceCube and other neutrino observatories could detect them. We investigate this scenario for dark matter particles above $m_χ \gtrsim$ PeV producing tau neutrino signals, using updated modeling of dark matter capture and thermalization. At these energies, tau neutrino regeneration is an important effect during propagation through Earth, allowing detection at distances far longer than one interaction length. We show ho…
The hypothesis of two different components in the high-energy neutrino flux observed with IceCube has been proposed to solve the tension among different data-sets and to account for an excess of neutrino events at 100 TeV. In addition to a standard astrophysical power-law component, the second component might be explained by a different class of astrophysical sources, or more intriguingly, might originate from decaying or annihilating dark matter. These two scenarios can be distinguished thanks to the different expected angular distributions of neutrino events. Neutrino signals from dark matte…
We propose a new candidate of GeV scale inelastic dark matter (DM). Our construction has an anomaly-free $U(1)_X^{}$ gauge group with dark photon mediator, and can realize either scalar or fermionic inelastic DM. It is highly predictive and testable. We study the scattering rate of light inelastic DM with electrons in the XENON1T experiment and with nuclei in the XENON1T, CRESST-III, CDEX-1B and DarkSide-50 experiments. We resolve the recent XENON1T anomaly via electron recoil detection. Combining the XENON1T constraints from both electron recoils and nuclear recoils (including Migdal effect),…
Non-local gravity effects in cosmological dynamics probed by IceCube/KM3NeT signals and dark matter relic abundance
Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”（那不勒斯费德里科二世大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)（意大利国家核物理研究所）；Scuola Superiore Meridionale（南方高等学院）；Università di Salerno（萨莱诺大学）；Loyola Marymount University（洛约拉马利蒙特大学）
Dark matter can scatter and excite a nucleus to a low-lying excitation in a direct detection experiment. This signature is distinct from the canonical elastic scattering signal because the inelastic signal also contains the energy deposited from the subsequent prompt de-excitation of the nucleus. A measurement of the elastic and inelastic signal will allow a single experiment to distinguish between a spin-independent and spin-dependent interaction. For the first time, we characterise the inelastic signal for two-phase xenon detectors in which dark matter inelastically scatters off the Xe-129 o…
Recently, observations by PAMELA, the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, and other cosmic ray experiments have generated a great deal of interest in dark matter (DM) particles which annihilate at a high rate to leptons. In this letter, we explore the possibility of using large volume neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube, to constrain such models; specifically we consider signals due to DM annihilation in the inner Milky Way. We find that, if Dark Matter annihilations are responsible for the signals observed by PAMELA and FGST, then IceCube (in conjunction with the planned low threshold extension…
