Probing the Local Dark Matter Halo with Neutrino Oscillations

TL;DR

This paper explores how neutrino oscillations can be used to detect and constrain Earth's local dark matter halo, especially for halos confined within the Earth, providing a novel method for dark matter investigation.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach using neutrino oscillation data to probe the Earth's dark matter halo and derives constraints on dark matter-neutrino couplings based on this method.

Findings

Neutrino oscillations are sensitive to Earth's interior dark matter halos.

Constraints on dark matter-neutrino couplings are derived from halo effects on neutrino oscillations.

Potential to detect small, interior dark matter halos inaccessible by other means.

Abstract

Dark matter particles can form halos gravitationally bound to massive astrophysical objects. The Earth could have such a halo where depending on the particle mass, the halo either extends beyond the surface or is confined to the Earth's interior. We consider the possibility that if dark matter particles are coupled to neutrinos, then neutrino oscillations can be used to probe the Earth's dark matter halo. In particular, atmospheric neutrinos traversing the Earth can be sensitive to a small size, interior halo, inaccessible by other means. Depending on the halo mass and neutrino energy, constraints on the dark matter-neutrino couplings are obtained from the halo corrections to the neutrino oscillations.