Dark matter explanations for the neutrino emission from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068

TL;DR

This paper explores dark matter annihilation near supermassive black holes as a source of high-energy neutrinos from NGC 1068, proposing models that explain the observed neutrino flux with minimal gamma-ray emission.

Contribution

It introduces novel dark matter scenarios involving density spikes and dark sectors that account for neutrino emissions without gamma-ray counterparts.

Findings

Dark matter annihilation can produce neutrino fluxes consistent with observations.

Proposed models explain the absence of neutrino signals from the Milky Way center.

Dark sector interactions suppress gamma-ray emissions in the proposed scenarios.

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that the high-energy neutrino flux observed from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068 originates from dark matter annihilations within the density spike surrounding the supermassive black hole at its center. The comparatively lower gamma-ray flux is attributed to a dark sector that couples predominantly to Standard Model neutrinos. To explain the absence of a corresponding neutrino signal from the center of the Milky Way, we propose two scenarios: (i) the disruption of the dark matter spike at the Milky Way center due to stellar heating, or (ii) the annihilation into a dark scalar that decays exclusively into neutrinos, with a decay length longer than the size of the Milky Way but shorter than the distance from Earth to NGC 1068.