New Limits on Thermally annihilating Dark Matter from Neutrino Telescopes

TL;DR

This paper establishes new upper limits on thermally annihilating dark matter's scattering cross-section using neutrino telescope data, considering velocity-dependent annihilation, and highlights the impact of solar model uncertainties.

Contribution

It provides the first robust upper bounds on velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation cross-sections from neutrino telescope observations, incorporating detailed solar models.

Findings

Upper bounds are an order of magnitude above s-wave limits.

Limits are sensitive to solar model uncertainties, fluctuating up to 20%.

Results are applicable to general velocity-dependent dark matter models.

Abstract

We used a consistent and robust solar model to obtain upper limits placed by neutrino telescopes, such as Ice- Cube and Super-Kamiokande, on the Dark Matter-nucleon scattering cross-section, for a general model of Dark Matter with a velocity dependent (p-wave) thermally averaged cross-section. In this picture, the Boltzmann equation for the Dark Matter abundance is numerically solved satisfying the Dark Matter density measured from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We show that for lower cross-sections and higher masses, the Dark Matter annihilation rate drops sharply, resulting in upper bounds on the scattering cross-section one order of magnitude above those derived from a velocity independent (s-wave) annihilation cross-section. Our results show that upper limits on the scattering cross-section obtained from Dark Matter annihilating in the Sun are sensible to the uncertainty in current standard solar models, fluctuating a maximum of 20 % depending on the annihilation channel.