Possible Interpretations of IceCube High-Energy Neutrino Events

Abstract

We discuss possible interpretations of the 37 high energy neutrino events observed by the IceCube experiment in the South Pole. We examine the possibility to explain the observed neutrino spectrum exclusively by the decays of a heavy long-lived particle of mass in the PeV range. We compare this with the standard scenario, namely, a single power-law spectrum related to neutrinos produced by astrophysical sources and a viable hybrid situation where the spectrum is a product of two components: a power-law and the long-lived particle decays. We present a simple extension of the Standard Model that could account for the heavy particle decays that are needed in order to explain the data. We show that the current data equally supports all above scenarios and try to evaluate the exposure needed in order to falsify them in the future.

29 pages, 9 figures; Re-analysis to include higher energy bins resulting in slight changes in numerics and figures while the conclusions remain unaffected. References updated and typos corrected to match the published version

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• Tau Neutrinos in the Next Decade: from GeV to EeV
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• Probing decaying heavy dark matter with the 4-year IceCube HESE data
• Dark Matter interpretation of low energy IceCube MESE excess
• The Leptoquark Implication from the CMS and IceCube Experiments
• Tsallis cosmology and its applications in dark matter physics with focus on IceCube high-energy neutrino data
• Kaniadakis entropy-based characterization of IceCube PeV neutrino signals
• Probing the cosmic sterile-neutrino background with IceCube