Measurement of Milli-Charged Particles with a running electromagnetic coupling constant at IceCube

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential detection of milli-charged particles originating from Earth's core at IceCube, modeling their interactions with a running electromagnetic coupling, and sets new limits on their flux and parameter space based on 10-year data.

Contribution

It introduces a model for MCPs with a running electromagnetic coupling and derives new experimental limits using IceCube data.

Findings

No MCP signal observed over 10 years at IceCube.

Set upper limits on MCP flux at 90% confidence level.

Excluded new regions in MCP mass and charge parameter space.

Abstract

It is postulated that heavy dark matter $\phi$ with a mass on the order of TeV, once captured by the Earth, can decay into relativistic milli-charged particles (MCPs). These MCPs are potentially detectable at the IceCube neutrino telescope. In this study, MCPs are modeled within the massless hidden photon framework, where they interact with nuclei via a running electromagnetic coupling constant, thereby enabling the prediction of their expected event rates and fluxes at IceCube. The expected number of background neutrino events at IceCube has also been evaluated. Under the assumption that no signal events are observed over a 10-year period at IceCube, upper limits on the MCP flux have been derived at the 90\% confidence level. The results suggest that MCPs originating from the Earth's core could be directly detected at IceCube at energies around $\mathcal{O}(1\ \text{TeV})$ for a fractional charge-squared range of $5.65\times10^{-5} \lesssim \epsilon^2 \lesssim 1.295\times10^{-3}$. Furthermore, with 10 years of IceCube data, a new region in the $m_{\text{MCP}}$-$\epsilon$ parameter space--specifically, $4\ \text{GeV} < m_{\text{MCP}} < 100\ \text{GeV}$ and $5.51\times10^{-2} < \epsilon < 0.612$--has been excluded.