# Superheavy Dark Matter and ANITA's Anomalous Events

## TL;DR

This paper explores the hypothesis that ANITA's anomalous events are caused by exotic superheavy dark matter particles decaying in the Milky Way halo, producing weakly interacting particles that generate detectable signals in Antarctic ice.

## Contribution

It proposes a novel explanation linking superheavy dark matter decay to ANITA's anomalous events, connecting astrophysical observations with particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

## Key findings

- Constraints from gamma-ray background measurements limit the parameter space.
- Existing neutrino and cosmic ray data can test the proposed scenario.
- The hypothesis provides a potential link between dark matter decay and anomalous neutrino events.

## Abstract

The ANITA experiment, which is designed to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos, has reported the observation of two anomalous events, directed at angles of $27^{\circ}$ and $35^{\circ}$ with respect to the horizontal. At these angles, the Earth is expected to efficiently absorb ultra-high energy neutrinos, making the origin of these events unclear and motivating explanations involving physics beyond the Standard Model. In this study, we consider the possibility that ANITA's anomalous events are the result of Askaryan emission produced by exotic weakly interacting particles scattering elastically with nuclei in the Antarctic ice sheet. Such particles could be produced by superheavy ($\sim 10^{10}-10^{13}$ GeV) dark matter particles decaying in the halo of the Milky Way. Such scenarios can be constrained by existing measurements of the high-latitude gamma-ray background and the ultra-high energy cosmic ray spectrum, along with searches for ultra-high energy neutrinos by IceCube and other neutrino telescopes.