Measurement of high energy dark matter from the Sun at IceCube

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential for IceCube to detect light dark matter particles originating from heavy dark matter decay in the Sun, setting upper limits based on 6 years of data and specific model parameters.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed assessment of IceCube's sensitivity to light dark matter from heavy dark matter decay via the $Z'$ portal model.

Findings

No events observed at IceCube over 6 years.

Upper limits on LDM fluxes were established.

Potential detection of LDM in the 1-10 TeV energy range under certain model conditions.

Abstract

It is assumed that heavy dark matter particles (HDMs) with a mass of O(TeV) are captured by the Sun. HDMs can decay to relativistic light dark matter particles (LDMs), which could be measured by km$^3$ neutrino telescopes (like the IceCube detector). The numbers and fluxes of expected LDMs and neutrinos were evaluated at IceCube with the $Z^{\prime}$ portal dark matter model. Based on the assumption that no events are observed at IceCube in 6 years, the corresponding upper limits on LDM fluxes were calculated at 90\% C. L.. These results indicated that LDMs could be directly detected in the O(1TeV)-O(10TeV) energy range at IceCube with 100 GeV $\lesssim m_{Z^{\prime}} \lesssim$ 350 GeV and $\tau_{\phi} \lesssim 5\times10^{22}$ s.