Can the ANITA anomalous events be due to new physics?

Abstract

The ANITA collaboration has observed two ultra-high-energy upgoing air shower events that cannot originate from Standard Model neutrinos that have traversed the Earth. Several beyond-the-standard-model physics scenarios have been proposed as explanations for these events. In this paper we present some general arguments making it challenging for new physics to explain the events. One exceptional class of models that could work is pointed out, in which metastable dark matter decays to a highly boosted lighter dark matter particle, that can interact in the Earth to produce the observed events.

12 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Towards Closing the Window on Strongly Interacting Dark Matter: Far-Reaching Constraints from Earth's Heat Flow
• A Comprehensive Approach to Tau-Lepton Production by High-Energy Tau Neutrinos Propagating Through Earth
• Search for Point-Like Sources of Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory and Improved Limit on the Diffuse Flux of Tau Neutrinos
• Superheavy Thermal Dark Matter and Primordial Asymmetries
• A Dark Matter Interpretation of the ANITA Anomalous Events

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Snowmass White Paper: Beyond the Standard Model effects on Neutrino Flavor
• Observing EeV neutrinos through the Earth: GZK and the anomalous ANITA events
• Dark Matter Candidates and Searches
• The ANITA Anomalous Events and Axion Quark Nuggets
• A search for the anomalous events detected by ANITA using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• IceCube and the origin of ANITA-IV events
• Using Secondary Tau Neutrinos to Probe Heavy Dark Matter Decays in Earth
• Constraints on energy scales from dark matter decay in a gauged $B-L$ model