Constraints on MeV dark matter using neutrino detectors and their implication for the 21-cm results

Abstract

The recent results of the EDGES collaboration indicate that during the era of reionization, the primordial gas was much colder than expected. The cooling of the gas could be explained by interactions between dark matter (DM) and particles in the primordial gas. Constraints from cosmology and particle experiments indicate that this DM should be light ($\sim$10-80 MeV), carry a small charge ($\epsilon \sim 10^{-6}$-$10^{-4}$), and only make up a small fraction of the total amount of DM. Several constraints on the DM parameter space have already been made. We explore the yet unconstrained region in the case that the milli-charged DM makes up for $\sim$2\% of the total dark matter, through the scenario in which this DM annihilates only into mu and tau neutrinos. We set upper limits on the annihilation cross section using the Super-Kamiokande data, and predict the limits that could be obtained through Hyper-Kamiokande, JUNO and DUNE. We find that data from Super-Kamiokande is not yet able to constrain this model, but future experiments might be. We furthermore explore DM annihilation into solely neutrinos in general, giving an update of the current limits, and predict the limits that could be placed with future experiments.

6 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (18)

• Refined Bounds on MeV-scale Thermal Dark Sectors from BBN and the CMB
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• Dark Matter Annihilation to Neutrinos
• Neutrino Portals to Dark Matter
• Monochromatic dark neutrinos and boosted dark matter in noble liquid direct detection
• Limits on astrophysical antineutrinos with the KamLAND experiment
• Searching for Sub-GeV Dark Matter in the Galactic Centre using Hyper-Kamiokande
• Search for U(1)${}_{L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }}$ charged Dark Matter with neutrino telescope
• Millicharged particles at electron colliders
• Light mass window of lepton portal dark matter
• Neutrino lines from MeV dark matter annihilation and decay in JUNO
• Robust Limits from Upcoming Neutrino Telescopes and Implications on Minimal Dark Matter Models
• A strong broadband 21 cm cosmological signal from dark matter spin-flip interactions
• Composite Dark Matter and Neutrino Masses from a Light Hidden Sector
• Directional Neutrino Searches for Galactic Center Dark Matter at Large Underground LArTPCs
• Anomalous EDGES 21-cm Signal and Moduli Dominated Era
• Searching for MeV-mass neutrinophilic Dark Matter with Large Scale Dark Matter Detectors
• Large Neutrino-Dark Matter Interactions: From Effective Field Theory to Ultraviolet Completions