Did IceCube discover Dark Matter around Blazars?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that including dark matter interactions in blazar jet models can explain the neutrino flux observed from TXS 0506+056, suggesting a potential link between dark matter and high-energy astrophysical neutrinos.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel extension of jet models to include dark matter interactions, successfully explaining neutrino observations from a blazar.

Findings

Dark matter interactions can increase predicted neutrino fluxes from blazars.

The model aligns with existing laboratory and indirect dark matter constraints.

Predictions can be tested with future neutrino and dark matter detection experiments.

Abstract

Models of blazar jets, that explain observations of their photon spectra, typically predict too few neutrinos to be possibly seen by existing telescopes. In particular, they fall short in reproducing the first neutrino ever detected from a blazar, TXS 0506+056, by IceCube in 2017. We predict larger neutrino fluxes by using the same jet models, extended to include deep inelastic scatterings between protons within the jets and sub-GeV dark matter (DM) around the central black holes of blazars. In this way we succeed in explaining neutrino observations of TXS 0506+056, for DM parameters allowed by all laboratory, direct and indirect searches. Our proposal will be tested by DM searches, as well as by the observation of more neutrinos from blazars. Our findings motivate to implement DM-nuclei interactions in jet models and to improve our knowledge of DM spikes around active galactic nuclei.