Search for dark matter with metastable mediators with the IceCube observatory

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of IceCube to detect dark matter annihilation signals involving metastable mediators, which can produce high-energy neutrinos from the Sun without attenuation, using six years of observational data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search strategy for dark matter with metastable mediators in IceCube data, covering a wide range of mediator lifetimes and dark matter masses.

Findings

IceCube is sensitive to spin-dependent cross-sections of 3.45 x 10^-34 cm^2 at 1 TeV DM mass.

The analysis covers mediator lifetimes from 1 ms to 10 s.

Six years of data provide significant constraints on such dark matter models.

Abstract

The IceCube neutrino observatory is a 3D array of photodetectors installed in the Antarctic ice. It consists of 5,160 photomultiplier-tubes spread among 86 vertical strings making a total detector volume of more than a cubic kilometer. It detects neutrinos via Cherenkov light of charged relativistic particles from neutrino interactions with the detector volume. IceCube is, due to its size and photosensor spacing, particularly sensitive to high-energy neutrinos. In this analysis we search for dark matter that annihilates into a metastable mediator that subsequently decays into Standard Model particles. These models yield an enhanced high-energy neutrino flux from dark matter annihilation inside the Sun compared to models without a mediator. Neutrino signals that are produced directly inside the Sun are strongly attenuated at higher energies due to interactions with the solar plasma. In the models considered here, the mediator can escape the Sun before producing any neutrinos, thereby avoiding attenuation. IceCube is ideal to search for this enhanced high-energy neutrino signal. We present the sensitivities of an analysis of six years of IceCube data looking for dark matter in the Sun considering mediator lifetimes between 1 ms to 10 s and dark matter masses between 200 GeV and 10 TeV. We show that IceCube is sensitive to spin--dependent cross--sections of $3.45 \times 10^{-34}~\rm cm^2$ for dark matter masses of 1 TeV.