# Assessing the sensitivity of PINGU to effective dark matter-nucleon interactions

## TL;DR

This paper evaluates PINGU's potential to detect various dark matter-nucleon interactions through neutrino signals, highlighting its ability to probe beyond standard models and improve current limits, especially for low-mass dark matter.

## Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive sensitivity analysis of PINGU to a wide range of non-relativistic effective dark matter-nucleon interactions, including velocity- and momentum-dependent types.

## Key findings

- PINGU can probe spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions effectively.
- Sensitivity contours are below current IceCube/DeepCore limits for certain channels.
- Lowering energy thresholds enhances detection prospects for soft neutrino spectra.

## Abstract

We calculate the sensitivity of next generation neutrino telescopes to the 28 (isoscalar and isovector) coupling constants defining the non-relativistic effective theory of (spin 1/2) dark matter (DM)-nucleon interactions. We take as a benchmark detector the proposed Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU), although our results are valid for any other neutrino telescope of similar effective volume. We express PINGU's sensitivity in terms of $5\sigma$ sensitivity contours in the DM-mass - coupling constant plane, and compare our sensitivity contours with the 90% C.L. exclusion limits on the same coupling constants that we obtain from a reanalysis of the null result of current DM searches at IceCube/DeepCore. We find that PINGU can effectively probe not only the canonical spin-independent and spin-dependent DM-nucleon interactions, but also velocity-dependent or momentum-dependent interactions that generate coherently enhanced DM-nucleus scattering cross sections. We also find that PINGU's $5\sigma$ sensitivity contours are significantly below current IceCube/DeepCore 90% C.L. exclusion limits when $b\bar{b}$ is the leading DM annihilation channel. This result shows the importance of lowering the experimental energy threshold when probing models that generate soft neutrino energy spectra, and holds true independently of the assumed DM-nucleon interaction and for all DM masses tested here. When DM primarily annihilates into $\tau\bar{\tau}$, a PINGU-like detector will improve upon current exclusion limits for DM masses below $35$ GeV, independently of the assumed DM-nucleon interaction.