Muon Fluxes and Showers from Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Center

TL;DR

This paper calculates neutrino-induced muon fluxes and shower event rates from dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center, highlighting differences from atmospheric neutrino signals and dependence on dark matter properties.

Contribution

It provides a model-independent analysis of neutrino signals from dark matter annihilation, including flux shapes, dependencies on dark matter profiles, and event rates for detectors.

Findings

Muon flux from dark matter differs from atmospheric neutrinos.

Signal dominates background for dark matter masses 150 GeV to 1 TeV.

Event rates for showers are significant above 100 GeV threshold.

Abstract

We calculate contained and upward muon flux and contained shower event rates from neutrino interactions, when neutrinos are produced from annihilation of the dark matter in the Galactic Center. We consider model-independent direct neutrino production and secondary neutrino production from the decay of taus, W bosons and bottom quarks produced in the annihilation of dark matter. We illustrate how muon flux from dark matter annihilation has a very different shape than the muon flux from atmospheric neutrinos. We also discuss the dependence of the muon fluxes on the dark matter density profile and on the dark matter mass and of the total muon rates on the detector threshold. We consider both the upward muon flux, when muons are created in the rock below the detector, and the contained flux when muons are created in the (ice) detector. We also calculate the event rates for showers from neutrino interactions in the detector and show that the signal dominates over the background for $150 {\rm GeV} <m_\chi < 1$ TeV for $E_{sh}^{th} = 100$ GeV.