Decaying Leptophilic Dark Matter at IceCube

Abstract

We present a novel interpretation of IceCube high energy neutrino events (with energy larger than 60 TeV) in terms of an extraterrestrial flux due to two different contributions: a flux originated by known astrophysical sources and dominating IceCube observations up to few hundreds TeV, and a new flux component where the most energetic neutrinos come from the leptophilic three-body decays of dark matter particles with a mass of few PeV. Differently from other approaches, we provide two examples of elementary particle models that do not require extremely tiny coupling constants. We find the compatibility of the theoretical predictions with the IceCube results when the astrophysical flux has a cutoff of the order of 100 TeV (broken power law). In this case the most energetic part of the spectrum (PeV neutrinos) is due to an extra component such as the decay of a very massive dark matter component. Due to the low statistics at our disposal we have considered for simplicity the equivalence between deposited and neutrino energy, however such approximation does not affect dramatically the qualitative results. Of course, a purely astrophysical origin of the neutrino flux (no cutoff in energy below the PeV scale - unbroken power law) is still allowed. If future data will confirm the presence of a sharp cutoff above few PeV this would be in favor of a dark matter interpretation.

19 pages, 3 figures. Version published in JCAP. The analysis was performed in terms of the number of neutrino events instead of the neutrino flux, using a multi-Poisson likelihood approach

References in corpus (22)

• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
• The spectrum of isotropic diffuse gamma-ray emission between 100 MeV and 820 GeV
• Dark matter production in the early Universe: beyond the thermal WIMP paradigm
• Neutralino with the Right Cold Dark Matter Abundance in (Almost) Any Supersymmetric Model
• (In)direct Detection of Boosted Dark Matter
• Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
• Testing the Dark Matter Scenario for PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube
• Search for production of vector-like quark pairs and of four top quarks in the lepton-plus-jets final state in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Perturbative charm production and the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in light of RHIC and LHC
• On the Importance of Electroweak Corrections for Majorana Dark Matter Indirect Detection
• A generalized self-veto probability for atmospheric neutrinos
• IceCube events and decaying dark matter: hints and constraints
• Boosted Dark Matter in IceCube and at the Galactic Center
• Detecting Boosted Dark Matter from the Sun with Large Volume Neutrino Detectors
• Neutrinoful Universe
• The Direct Detection of Boosted Dark Matter at High Energies and PeV events at IceCube
• Monochromatic neutrinos generated by dark matter and the see-saw mechanism
• Possible Interpretations of IceCube High-Energy Neutrino Events
• High-Energy Neutrinos from Active Galactic Nuclei
• Universally Leptophilic Dark Matter From Non-Abelian Discrete Symmetry
• Diffuse neutrinos from extragalactic supernova remnants: Dominating the 100 TeV IceCube flux
• Cosmological Implications of High-Energy Neutrino Emission from the Decay of Long-Lived Particle

Cited by in corpus (57)

• Grand Unified Neutrino Spectrum at Earth: Sources and Spectral Components
• Gamma-ray Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter and Implications for IceCube
• Design and Sensitivity of the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G)
• Opening a New Window onto the Universe with IceCube
• Dark Matter Limits From Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with The HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory
• Search for neutrinos from decaying dark matter with IceCube
• Status, Challenges and Directions in Indirect Dark Matter Searches
• Heavy right-handed neutrino dark matter and PeV neutrinos at IceCube
• A Search for Dark Matter in the Galactic Halo with HAWC
• Analysis of the 4-year IceCube high-energy starting events
• Unifying leptogenesis, dark matter and high-energy neutrinos with right-handed neutrino mixing via Higgs portal
• Probing Particle Physics with IceCube
• Interpreting IceCube 6-year HESE data as an evidence for hundred TeV decaying Dark Matter
• Tau Neutrinos in the Next Decade: from GeV to EeV
• IceCube Events from Heavy DM decays through the Right-handed Neutrino Portal
• Low energy IceCube data and a possible Dark Matter related excess
• Pairwise sums in colourings of the reals
• A Combined Astrophysical and Dark Matter Interpretation of the IceCube HESE and Throughgoing Muon Events
• Multi-component Fermionic Dark Matter and IceCube PeV scale Neutrinos in Left-Right Model with Gauge Unification
• Model-independent analysis of the DAMPE excess
• Update on decaying and annihilating heavy dark matter with the 6-year IceCube HESE data
• High-energy Neutrinos from Multi-body Decaying Dark Matter
• A consistent model for leptogenesis, dark matter and the IceCube signal
• A Consistent Theory of Decaying Dark Matter Connecting IceCube to the Sesame Street
• Decaying dark matter at IceCube and its signature on High Energy gamma experiments
• Probing decaying heavy dark matter with the 4-year IceCube HESE data
• Dark Matter interpretation of low energy IceCube MESE excess
• Boosted Dark Matter and its implications for the features in IceCube HESE data
• Interactions of Astrophysical Neutrinos with Dark Matter: A model building perspective
• Model-independent Astrophysical Constraints on Leptophilic Dark Matter in the Framework of Tsallis Statistics
• Tsallis cosmology and its applications in dark matter physics with focus on IceCube high-energy neutrino data
• IC at IC: IceCube can constrain the intrinsic charm of the proton
• Constraints on heavy decaying dark matter with current gamma-ray measurements
• Simplified TeV leptophilic dark matter in light of DAMPE data
• Heavy decaying dark matter at future neutrino radio telescopes
• Dark Matter Decay to a Photon and a Neutrino: the Double Monochromatic Smoking Gun Scenario
• The flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos after 8 years of IceCube: an indication of neutron decay scenario?
• Super heavy dark matter origin of the PeV neutrino event: KM3-230213A
• PeV IceCube signals and Dark Matter relic abundance in modified cosmologies
• Probing dark matter signals in neutrino telescopes through angular power spectrum
• EFT analysis of leptophilic dark matter at future electron-positron colliders in the mono-photon and mono-$Z$ channels
• PeV scale Supersymmetry breaking and the IceCube neutrino flux
• Novel Gamma-Ray Signatures of PeV-Scale Dark Matter
• Neutrinophilic Dark Matter in the epoch of IceCube and Fermi-LAT
• Density matrix calculation of the dark matter abundance in the Higgs induced right-handed neutrino mixing model
• Cosmological Origin of the KM3-230213A event and associated Gravitational Waves
• Neutrinos from the Sun can discover dark matter-electron scattering
• Early Decay of Peccei-Quinn Fermion and the IceCube Neutrino Events
• Supergravity Model of Inflation and Explaining IceCube HESE Data via PeV Dark Matter Decay
• Indirect searches of Galactic diffuse dark matter in INO-MagICAL detector
• Kaniadakis entropy-based characterization of IceCube PeV neutrino signals
• Phenomenology of Colored Radiative Neutrino Mass Model and Its Implications on the Cosmic-ray Observations
• Effects of Majorana Physics on the UHE ${\nu }_{\tau }$ Flux Traversing the Earth
• IceCube PeV Neutrinos and Leptophilic Dark Matter
• Beyond Standard Neutrino Theory
• LHAASO Galactic Plane $\gamma$-rays Strongly Constrain Heavy Dark Matter
• Potential Dark Matter Signals at Neutrino Telescopes