Probing WIMP particle physics and astrophysics with direct detection and neutrino telescope data

Abstract

With positive signals from multiple direct detection experiments it will, in principle, be possible to measure the mass and cross sections of weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Recent work has shown that, with a polynomial parameterisation of the WIMP speed distribution, it is possible to make an unbiased measurement of the WIMP mass, without making any astrophysical assumptions. However, direct detection experiments are not sensitive to low-speed WIMPs and, therefore, any model-independent approach will lead to a bias in the cross section. This problem can be solved with the addition of measurements of the flux of neutrinos from the Sun. This is because the flux of neutrinos produced from the annihilation of WIMPs which have been gravitationally captured in the Sun is sensitive to low-speed WIMPs. Using mock data from next-generation direct detection experiments and from the IceCube neutrino telescope, we show that the complementary information from IceCube on low-speed WIMPs breaks the degeneracy between the cross section and the speed distribution. This allows unbiased determinations of the WIMP mass and spin-independent and spin-dependent cross sections to be made, and the speed distribution to be reconstructed. We use two parameterisations of the speed distribution: binned and polynomial. While the polynomial parameterisation can encompass a wider range of speed distributions, this leads to larger uncertainties in the particle physics parameters.

24 pages, 13 figures. Corrected error in likelihood; changes to discussion of Benchmark C. Matches version accepted in PRD

References in corpus (22)

• The RAVE Survey: Constraining the Local Galactic Escape Speed
• The Local Dark Matter Density
• The Milky Way's circular velocity curve between 4 and 14 kpc from APOGEE data
• Phase-space structure in the local dark matter distribution and its signature in direct detection experiments
• The Astrophysical Uncertainties Of Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Improved Spin-Dependent WIMP Limits from a Bubble Chamber
• Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilations Obtained Using a Full Three-Flavor Monte Carlo Approach
• Halo-to-Halo Similarity and Scatter in the Velocity Distribution of Dark Matter
• Complementarity of Dark Matter Direct Detection Targets
• Prospects for dark matter searches in the pMSSM
• Detecting the Milky Way's Dark Disk
• Dependence of direct detection signals on the WIMP velocity distribution
• Dark matter in the solar system II: WIMP annihilation rates in the Sun
• Determining the WIMP mass using direct detection experiments
• Determining the WIMP mass from a single direct detection experiment, a more detailed study
• Fundamental statistical limitations of future dark matter direct detection experiments
• Use of event-level neutrino telescope data in global fits for theories of new physics
• Improved determination of the WIMP mass from direct detection data
• Sensitivity of IceCube-DeepCore to neutralino dark matter in the MSSM-25
• Reanalysis of nuclear spin matrix elements for dark matter spin-dependent scattering
• Scintillating bolometers: a key for determining WIMP parameters
• Nuclear proton and neutron distributions in the detection of weak interacting massive particles

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints
• On the direct detection of multi-component dark matter: sensitivity studies and parameter estimation
• Studying generalised dark matter interactions with extended halo-independent methods
• Reconstructing the three-dimensional local dark matter velocity distribution