Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userUpdate on decaying and annihilating heavy dark matter with the 6-year IceCube HESE data
184
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
In view of the IceCubes 6-year high-energy starting events (HESE) sample, we revisit the possibility that the updated data may be better explained by a combination of neutrino fluxes from dark matter decay and an isotropic astrophysical power-law than purely by the latter. We find that the combined two-component flux qualitatively improves the fit to the observed data over a purely astrophysical one, and discuss how these updated fits compare against a similar analysis done with the 4-year HESE data. We also update fits involving dark matter decay via multiple channels, without any contribution from the astrophysical flux. We find that a DM-only explanation is not excluded by neutrino data alone. Finally, we also consider the possibility of a signal from dark matter annihilations and perform analogous analyses to the case of decays, commenting on its implications.
rate research
Read More
After the first four years of data taking, the IceCube neutrino telescope has observed 54 high-energy starting events (HESE) with deposited energies between 20 TeV and 2 PeV. The background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos is expected to be of about 20 events, all below 100 TeV, thus pointing towards the astrophysical origin of about 8 events per year in that data set. However, their precise origin remains unknown. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of this event sample (considering simultaneously the energy, hemisphere and topology of the events) by assuming two contributions for the signal events: an isotropic power-law flux and a flux from decaying heavy dark matter. We fit the mass and lifetime of the dark matter and the normalization and spectral index of an isotropic power-law flux, for various decay channels of dark matter. We find that a significant contribution from dark matter decay is always slightly favored, either to explain the excess below 100 TeV, as in the case of decays to quarks or, as in the case of neutrino channels, to explain the three multi-PeV events. Also, we consider the possibility to interpret all the data by dark matter decays only, considering various combinations of two decay channels. We show that the decaying dark matter scenario provides a better fit to HESE data than the isotropic power-law flux.
Recently reported tentative evidence for a gamma-ray line in the Fermi-LAT data is of great potential interest for identifying the nature of dark matter. We compare the implications for decaying and annihilating dark matter taking the constraints from continuum gamma-rays, antiproton flux and morphology of the excess into account. We find that higgsino and wino dark matter are excluded, also for nonthermal production. Generically, the continuum gamma-ray flux severely constrains annihilating dark matter. Consistency of decaying dark matter with the spatial distribution of the Fermi-LAT excess would require an enhancement of the dark matter density near the Galactic center.
Utilizing the Fermi measurement of the gamma-ray spectrum toward the Galactic Center, we derive some of the strongest constraints to date on the dark matter (DM) lifetime in the mass range from hundreds of MeV to above an EeV. Our profile-likelihood based analysis relies on 413 weeks of Fermi Pass 8 data from 200 MeV to 2 TeV, along with up-to-date models for diffuse gamma-ray emission within the Milky Way. We model Galactic and extragalactic DM decay and include contributions to the DM-induced gamma-ray flux resulting from both primary emission and inverse-Compton scattering of primary electrons and positrons. For the extragalactic flux, we also calculate the spectrum associated with cascades of high-energy gamma-rays scattering off of the cosmic background radiation. We argue that a decaying DM interpretation for the 10 TeV-1 PeV neutrino flux observed by IceCube is disfavored by our constraints. Our results also challenge a decaying DM explanation of the AMS-02 positron flux. We interpret the results in terms of individual final states and in the context of simplified scenarios such as a hidden-sector glueball model.
Among the several strategies for indirect searches of dark matter, one very promising one is to look for the gamma-rays from decaying dark matter. Here we use the most up-to-date upper bounds on the gamma-ray flux from $10^5$ to $10^{11}$ GeV, obtained from CASA-MIA, KASCADE, KASCADE-Grande, Pierre Auger Observatory, and Telescope Array. We obtain global limits on dark matter lifetime in the range of masses $m_mathrm{DM}=[10^7-10^{15}]~mathrm{GeV}$. We provide the bounds for a set of decay channels chosen as representatives. The constraints derived here are new and cover a region of the parameter space not yet explored. We compare our results with the projected constraints from future neutrino telescopes, in order to quantify the improvement that will be obtained by the complementary high-energy neutrino searches.
We propose a decaying cold dark matter model to explain the excess of electron recoil observed at the XENON1T experiment. In this scenario, the daughter dark matter from the parent dark matter decay easily obtains velocity large enough to saturate the peak of the electron recoil energy around 2.5 keV, and the observed signal rate can be fulfilled by the parent dark matter with a mass of order 10-200 MeV and a lifetime larger than the age of Universe. We verify that this model is consistent with experimental limits from dark matter detections, Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure experiments.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
