Using Secondary Tau Neutrinos to Probe Heavy Dark Matter Decays in Earth

Abstract

Dark matter particles can be gravitationally trapped by celestial bodies, motivating searches for localized annihilation or decay. If neutrinos are among the decay products, then IceCube and other neutrino observatories could detect them. We investigate this scenario for dark matter particles above $m_{\chi }\gtrsim$ PeV producing tau neutrino signals, using updated modeling of dark matter capture and thermalization. At these energies, tau neutrino regeneration is an important effect during propagation through Earth, allowing detection at distances far longer than one interaction length. We show how large energy loss of tau leptons above $\sim$ PeV drives a wide range of initial energies to the same final energy spectrum of "secondary" tau neutrinos at the detector, and we provide an analytic approximation to the numerical results. This effect enables an experiment to constrain decays that occur at very high energies, and we examine the reach of the IceCube high-energy starting event (HESE) sample in the parameter space of trapped dark matter annihilations and decays above PeV. We find that the parameter space probed by IceCube searches would require dark matter cross sections in tension with existing direct-detection bounds.

arXiv commentUpdated to include projected IceCube-Gen2 sensitivity, various minor revisions for clarity, some references added

References in corpus (41)

• Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detector
• IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
• The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data
• Search for Dark Matter WIMPs using Upward Through-going Muons in Super-Kamiokande
• Tau Neutrino Appearance with a 1000 Megaparsec Baseline
• Limits on Dark Matter Annihilation Signals from the Fermi LAT 4-year Measurement of the Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background
• Testing the Dark Matter Scenario for PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube
• Are IceCube neutrinos unveiling PeV-scale decaying dark matter?
• CPT-Symmetric Universe
• Dark Matter Annihilation to Neutrinos
• Physics Reach of High-Energy and High-Statistics IceCube Atmospheric Neutrino Data
• Constraining Very Heavy Dark Matter Using Diffuse Backgrounds of Neutrinos and Cascaded Gamma Rays
• Search for neutrinos from decaying dark matter with IceCube
• Earth-Scattering of super-heavy Dark Matter: updated constraints from detectors old and new
• Enhanced signal of astrophysical tau neutrinos propagating through Earth
• A Comprehensive Approach to Tau-Lepton Production by High-Energy Tau Neutrinos Propagating Through Earth
• (Not as) Big as a Barn: Upper Bounds on Dark Matter-Nucleus Cross Sections
• Unstable Gravitino Dark Matter and Neutrino Flux
• Evaporation of dark matter from celestial bodies
• Dark Matter Disc Enhanced Neutrino Fluxes from the Sun and Earth
• Search for dark matter towards the Galactic Centre with 11 years of ANTARES data
• Dark Matter, Destroyer of Worlds: Neutrino, Thermal, and Existential Signatures from Black Holes in the Sun and Earth
• Upgoing ANITA events as evidence of the CPT symmetric universe
• High Energy Neutrinos From Superheavy Dark Matter Annihilation
• Update on decaying and annihilating heavy dark matter with the 6-year IceCube HESE data
• Direct Detection Limits on Heavy Dark Matter
• A Dark Matter Interpretation of the ANITA Anomalous Events
• First search for dark matter annihilations in the Earth with the IceCube Detector
• Cosmic tau neutrino detection via Cherenkov signals from air showers from Earth-emerging taus
• Extreme Energy nu_tau Propagation Through the Earth
• Ultra-High-Energy Tau Neutrino Cross Sections with GRAND and POEMMA
• Probing the Desert with Ultra--Energetic Neutrinos from the Sun and the Earth
• Observing EeV neutrinos through the Earth: GZK and the anomalous ANITA events
• Can the ANITA anomalous events be due to new physics?
• The ALLM parameterization of sigma_{tot}(gamma* p) - an update
• Erratum: A Comprehensive Approach to Tau-Lepton Production by High-Energy Tau Neutrinos Propagating Through Earth [Phys. Rev. D 97, 023021 (2018), arXiv:1707.00334]
• Neutrino Telescopes' Sensitivity to Dark Matter
• Oscillations of sterile neutrinos from dark matter decay eliminates the IceCube-Fermi tension
• Contribution of Secondary Neutrinos from Line-of-sight Cosmic Ray Interactions to the IceCube Diffuse Astrophysical Flux
• Indirect dark matter searches at ultrahigh energy neutrino detectors
• Estimation of Baryon Asymmetry from Dark Matter Decaying into IceCube Neutrinos