Indirect Dark Matter Detection in the Light of Sterile Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper investigates how sterile neutrinos, suggested by recent oscillation data, affect the detection of dark matter via neutrinos from the Sun, showing that active-sterile oscillations can significantly reduce observable neutrino fluxes.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of sterile neutrinos on dark matter indirect detection, highlighting resonant oscillations that deplete high-energy neutrino fluxes from the Sun.

Findings

Resonant active-sterile oscillations occur for neutrinos with E_ u > 100 GeV.

Sterile neutrinos can significantly deplete neutrino fluxes from dark matter annihilation.

The presence of sterile neutrinos alters expected neutrino signals at Earth.

Abstract

The recent global fit of short baseline neutrino oscillation data favors the presence of one (or more) sterile neutrino state which leads to new mass splitting \Delta m^2 ~1 eV^2. We consider the effect of this new states on the evolution of neutrinos from the dark matter annihilation inside the Sun. We show that neutrinos with energy E_\nu > 100 GeV undergo resonant active-sterile oscillation which depletes the flux of neutrinos arriving at the Earth. As an example of this effect, we present the oscillation probabilities for the case of monochromatic neutrinos from the direct annihilation of dark matter particles to neutrinos and the depletion due to the presence of sterile neutrinos.