Neutrinos from Earth-Bound Dark Matter Annihilation

TL;DR

This paper investigates neutrino signals resulting from Earth-bound dark matter annihilation, revealing that Earth could produce detectable neutrino fluxes in certain regimes and constraining dark matter properties through existing neutrino search data.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis of neutrino signals from dark matter annihilation within Earth, exploring optically thick capture regimes and constraining dark matter parameters.

Findings

Earth provides the largest neutrino flux in the optically thick regime.

Existing neutrino searches exclude new regions of dark matter parameter space.

Two scenarios for neutrino flux are considered: stopped mesons and prompt higher-energy neutrinos.

Abstract

A sub-component of dark matter with a short collision length compared to a planetary size leads to efficient accumulation of dark matter in astrophysical bodies. We analyze possible neutrino signals from the annihilation of such dark matter and conclude that in the optically thick regime for dark matter capture, the Earth provides the largest neutrino flux. Using the results of the existing searches, we consider two scenarios for the neutrino flux, from stopped mesons and prompt higher-energy neutrinos. In both cases we exclude some previously unexplored parts of the parameter space (dark matter mass, its abundance, and the scattering cross section on nuclei) by recasting the existing neutrino searches.