Constraining dark matter capture and annihilation cross sections by searching for neutrino signature from the Earth core

TL;DR

This paper evaluates IceCube/DeepCore's ability to detect neutrinos from dark matter annihilations in Earth's core, providing competitive constraints on dark matter properties compared to existing experiments and models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of IceCube/DeepCore's sensitivity to dark matter in Earth's core, considering multiple annihilation channels and comparing with direct detection and astrophysical data.

Findings

IceCube/DeepCore can set competitive limits on dark matter cross sections.

Expected constraints are more stringent than previous IceCube limits for 5 years of data.

Results are consistent with and complement direct detection and astrophysical observations.

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of IceCube/DeepCore detector to dark matter annihilations in the Earth core. We focus on annihilation modes $\chi\chi\to \nu \bar{\nu}, \, \tau^+ \tau^-, \, b \bar{b}$, and $W^+W^-$. Both track and cascade events are considered in our analysis. By fixing the dark matter annihilation cross section $\langle \sigma\upsilon\rangle$ at some nominal values, we study the sensitivity of IceCube/DeepCore detector to dark matter spin-independent cross section $\sigma_p^{\rm SI}$ for $m_{\chi}$ ranging from few tens of GeV to 10 TeV. This sensitivity is compared with the existing IceCube 79-string constraint on the same cross section, which was obtained by searching for dark matter annihilations in the Sun. We compare this sensitivity to dark matter direct detection results as well, in particular the XENON100 (2012) limit and the parameter regions preferred by DAMA and CRESST-II experiments. We also present IceCube/DeepCore sensitivity to $\langle \sigma\upsilon \rangle$ as a function of $m_{\chi}$ by fixing $\sigma_p^{\rm SI}$ at XENON100 (2012) and XENON1T limits, respectively. This sensitivity is compared with the preferred dark matter parameter range derived from the combined fitting to PAMELA and AMS02 positron fraction data. We conclude that the search for dark matter annihilations in the Earth core provides competitive constraints on $\sigma_p^{\rm SI}$ and $\langle \sigma\upsilon \rangle$ in the case of low-mass dark matter. Particularly, the expected constraint on $\sigsip$ for 5 years of data taking in IceCube/DeepCore is more stringent than the current IceCube 79-string limit mentioned above.