High-Energy Neutrino Signatures of Dark Matter Decaying into Leptons

TL;DR

This paper explores how high-energy neutrino observations from IceCube can detect or constrain dark matter particles decaying into leptons, which could explain cosmic ray excesses.

Contribution

It demonstrates that IceCube with five years of data can significantly constrain or potentially discover decaying dark matter in the Milky Way halo.

Findings

IceCube can constrain dark matter decay parameters within five years.

Potential for IceCube to discover dark matter decay signals.

Decaying dark matter into leptons explains cosmic ray excesses.

Abstract

Decaying dark matter has previously been proposed as a possible explanation for the excess high energy cosmic ray electrons and positrons seen by PAMELA and the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (FGST). To accommodate these signals however, the decays must be predominantly leptonic, to muons or taus, and therefore produce neutrinos, potentially detectable with the IceCube neutrino observatory. We find that, with five years of data, IceCube (supplemented by DeepCore) will be able to significantly constrain the relevant parameter space of decaying dark matter, and may even be capable of discovering dark matter decaying in the halo of the Milky Way.