Boosted Dark Matter in IceCube and at the Galactic Center

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the IceCube neutrino excess can be explained by boosted dark matter particles decaying and scattering, also linking to gamma-ray excesses in the galactic center, with specific model predictions and constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel boosted dark matter model explaining IceCube events and galactic center gamma-ray excesses, with detailed predictions and parameter constraints.

Findings

Model fits IceCube data with boosted dark matter scattering and decay.

Predicts secondary neutrino, gamma-ray, and positron fluxes consistent with observations.

Constraints on mediator mass and couplings from accelerator and detection limits.

Abstract

We show that the event excess observed by the IceCube collaboration at TeV--PeV energies, usually interpreted as evidence for astrophysical neutrinos, can be explained alternatively by the scattering of highly boosted dark matter particles. Specifically, we consider a scenario where a $\sim 4$ PeV scalar dark matter particle $\phi$ can decay to a much lighter dark fermion $\chi$, which in turn scatters off nuclei in the IceCube detector. Besides these events, which are exclusively shower-like, the model also predicts a secondary population of events at $\mathcal{O}(100 \text{TeV})$ originating from the 3-body decay $\phi \to \chi \bar\chi a$, where $a$ is a pseudoscalar which mediates dark matter--Standard Model interactions and whose decay products include neutrinos. This secondary population also includes track-like events, and both populations together provide an excellent fit to the IceCube data. We then argue that a relic abundance of light Dark Matter particles $\chi$, which may constitute a subdominant component of the Dark Matter in the Universe, can have exactly the right properties to explain the observed excess in GeV gamma rays from the galactic center region. Our boosted Dark Matter scenario also predicts fluxes of $\mathcal{O}(10)$ TeV positrons and $\mathcal{O}(100 \text{TeV})$ photons from 3-body cascade decays of the heavy Dark Matter particle $\phi$, and we show how these can be used to constrain parts of the viable parameter space of the model. Direct detection limits are weak due to the pseudoscalar couplings of $\chi$. Accelerator constraints on the pseudoscalar mediator $a$ lead to the conclusion that the preferred mass of $a$ is $\gtrsim 10$ GeV and that large coupling to $b$ quarks but suppressed or vanishing coupling to leptons are preferred.