The Direct Detection of Boosted Dark Matter at High Energies and PeV events at IceCube

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for detecting high-energy boosted dark matter at IceCube, proposing that energetic dark matter particles could produce cascade events similar to neutrino interactions, offering a new detection avenue.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scenario where boosted dark matter interacts with nucleons at high energies, mimicking neutrino interactions, and applies this to explain PeV cascade events at IceCube.

Findings

Boosted dark matter can produce cascade events similar to neutrino interactions.

High-energy dark matter cross-sections can rise sharply, enabling detection in large neutrino detectors.

The scenario can potentially explain the PeV cascade events observed at IceCube.

Abstract

We study the possibility of detecting dark matter directly via a small but energetic component that is allowed within present-day constraints. Drawing closely upon the fact that neutral current neutrino nucleon interactions are indistinguishable from DM-nucleon interactions at low energies, we extend this feature to high energies for a small, non-thermal but highly energetic population of DM particle $\chi$, created via the decay of a significantly more massive and long-lived non-thermal relic $\phi$, which forms the bulk of DM. If $\chi$ interacts with nucleons, its cross-section, like the neutrino-nucleus coherent cross-section, can rise sharply with energy leading to deep inelastic scattering, similar to neutral current neutrino-nucleon interactions at high energies. Thus, its direct detection may be possible via cascades in very large neutrino detectors. As a specific example, we apply this notion to the recently reported three ultra-high energy PeV cascade events clustered around $1-2$ PeV at IceCube (IC). We discuss the features which may help discriminate this scenario from one in which only astrophysical neutrinos constitute the event sample in detectors like IC.