Constraints on the Dark Matter Annihilations by Neutrinos with Substructure Effects Included

TL;DR

This paper derives upper bounds on dark matter annihilation cross sections using neutrino observations, incorporating substructure effects which significantly tighten these constraints, especially with IceCube's high angular resolution.

Contribution

It introduces the inclusion of dark matter substructure effects into neutrino-based constraints on annihilation cross sections, improving previous bounds.

Findings

Substructure effects can enhance bounds by up to four orders of magnitude.

IceCube can reach sensitivity levels of approximately 10^{-26} cm^3 s^{-1}.

Including substructure improves the bounds on dark matter annihilation cross sections.

Abstract

Dark matter (DM) annihilations in the Galaxy may produce high energy neutrinos, which can be detected by the neutrino telescopes, for example IceCube, ANTARES and Super-Kamiokande. The neutrinos can also arise from hadronic interaction between cosmic ray and atmosphere around the Earth, known as atmospheric neutrino. Current measurements on neutrino flux is consistent with theoretical prediction of atmospheric neutrino within the uncertainties. In this paper, by requiring that the DM annihilation neutrino flux is less than the current measurements, we obtain an upper bound on the cross section of dark matter annihilation $ < {\sigma v} >$. Compared with previous investigations, we improve the bound by including DM substructure contributions. In our paper, two kinds of substructure effects are scrutinized. One is the substructure average contribution over all directions. The other is point source effect by single massive sub-halo. We found that the former can improve the bound by several times, while the latter can improve the bound by $ 10^1 \sim 10^4$ utilizing the excellent angular resolution of neutrino telescope IceCube. The exact improvement depends on the DM profile and the sub-halo concentration model. In some model, IceCube can achieve the sensitivity of $ < {\sigma v} > \sim 10^{- 26} cm^3 s^{- 1} $.