On the role of neutrinos telescopes in the search for Dark Matter annihilations in the Sun

Abstract

The observation of GeV neutrinos coming from the Sun would be an unmistakable signal of dark matter. Current neutrino detectors have so far failed to detect such a signal, however, and bounds from direct and indirect dark matter searches may significantly restrict the possibility of observing it in future experiments such as Hyper-Kamiokande or IceCube-Gen2. In this work we assess, in the light of current data and of expected experimental sensitivities, the prospects for the detection of a neutrino signal from dark matter annihilations in the Sun. To be as general as possible, equilibrium between the capture and the annihilation rates in the Sun is not assumed in our analysis; instead, the dark matter scattering and annihilation cross sections are taken as free and independent parameters. We consider capture via both spin-dependent and spin-independent interactions, and annihilations into three representative final states: bb, W + W − , and τ + τ − . We find that when the capture in the Sun is dominated by spin-independent interactions, current direct detection bounds already preclude the observation of a neutrino signal in future experiments. For capture via spin-dependent interactions, a strong complementarity is observed, over most of the parameter space, between future neutrino detectors and planned direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments, such as PICO-500 and CTA. In this case, we also identify some regions of the parameter space that can be probed, via the neutrino flux from the Sun, only by future neutrino experiments.

Quasielastic Lepton Scattering off Two-Component Dark Matter in Hypercolor Model

“…The number of neutrino events will also grow due to its proportionality to the DM density value. Note, the scattering of initial neutrino off the DM with creation of three secondary neutrinos can be interesting for the study of neutrino flux from the Sun [72].…”

Analysis on the black hole formations inside old neutron stars by isospin-violating dark matter with self-interaction

“…The case for the solar-capture DM has been studied recently in refs. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. On the other hand, if captures happen in the compact stars such as neutron stars (NS), the annihilation products could potentially cause the surface temperature of the star deviating from the standard prediction .…”

Dark matter capture by the Sun: revisiting velocity distribution uncertainties

“…The dark matter distribution near the Sun is extensively reviewed and discussed in [64] (see also the discussion in [65]). Different DM VDF assumptions can reduce or enhance the available population of WIMPs that can be captured, consequently affecting the sensitivities of DM detection efforts [4,6,47,66,67]. Concerning the DM VDF in the solar neighbourhood, several distribution functions have been proposed as attempts to better reproduce some features of the VDF shape, such as the platykurtic nature of the peak or the sharp cut of the tail of the distributions observed in cosmological simulation data.…”