IceCube PeV neutrinos from heavy dark matter decay with 12 years HESE data

TL;DR

This paper models neutrino fluxes from heavy dark matter decay to explain IceCube's PeV neutrino events, estimating dark matter properties and decay channels using 12-year data and QCD/electroweak cascade calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical approach to compute neutrino fluxes from superheavy dark matter decay, estimating its mass, lifetime, and decay channel contributions from IceCube data.

Findings

Dark matter mass estimated at ~9.4 million GeV.

Decay lifetime approximately 4.2 x 10^{28} seconds.

Leptonic decay contribution is very small (~0.001).

Abstract

The decay of superheavy dark matter from the early universe may undergo decay via QCD cascades and electroweak cascade to produce neutrinos as one of the decay products. We consider the neutrino events in and around PeV region reported by IceCube collaboration are due to the decay of such heavy dark matter. The neutrino spectrum could be from the decay processes via hadronic decay modes and/or leptonic decay modes. Using the numerical evolution of QCD cascades as well as electroweak corrections where use has been made of DGLAP equations, the neutrino fluxes from the heavy dark matter decay have been computed. The mass of the decaying superheavy dark matter and its decay lifetime have then been estimated from a $\chi^2$ analysis of the IceCube 12-year data. The fractional contribution ($f_{\rm lep}$) of the leptonic decay channel in such a decay process is also estimated from the same $\chi^2$ analyses. It is seen that to explain the IceCube 12-year ultrahigh energy (UHE) events the mass of a decaying superheavy dark matter would be $\sim9.4\times 10^6$ GeV and decay time $\tau \simeq 4.2 \times 10^{28}$ second. It is also found that the lepton channel contribution is very small, $f_{\rm lep} \sim 0.001$.