Abstract
We present a search for an excess of neutrino interactions due to dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) annihilating in the galactic center or halo based on the data set of Super-Kamiokande-I, -II, -III and -IV taken from 1996 to 2016. We model the neutrino flux, energy, and flavor distributions assuming WIMP self-annihilation is dominant to $\nu \overline{\nu}$, $\mu^+\mu^-$, $b\overline{b}$, or $W^+W^-$. The excess is in comparison to atmospheric neutrino interactions which are modeled in detail and fit to data. Limits on the self-annihilation cross section $\langle \sigma_{A} V \rangle$ are derived for WIMP masses in the range 1 GeV to 10 TeV, reaching as low as $9.6 \times10^{-23}$ cm$^3$ s$^{-1}$ for 5 GeV WIMPs in $b\bar b$ mode and $1.2 \times10^{-24}$ cm$^3$ s$^{-1}$ for 1 GeV WIMPs in $\nu \bar \nu$ mode. The obtained sensitivity of the Super-Kamiokande detector to WIMP masses below several tens of GeV is the best among similar indirect searches to date.
Highlights
There is compelling evidence that ordinary baryonic matter composes only 5% of the total energy density of the Universe, which is dominated by dark energy (68%) and dark matter (27%) whose nature is unknown [1]
We present a search for an excess of neutrino interactions due to dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) annihilating in the Galactic center or halo based on the data set of
The fitted number of dark matter (DM)-induced neutrino events accounting for the “best-fit” signal normalization β is shown in Fig. 5 along with the expected limits as calculated by Monte Carlo (MC) under the assumption of no WIMP signal
Summary
There is compelling evidence that ordinary baryonic matter composes only 5% of the total energy density of the Universe, which is dominated by dark energy (68%) and dark matter (27%) whose nature is unknown [1]. Some well-motivated candidates for particle dark matter (DM) arise within supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model [2,3] These particles belong to a collective group referred to as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). WIMPs present in the Galactic halo may be observed directly via elastic scattering off nuclei in detectors [4,5] or indirectly through detection of the products of their annihilations (or decays) into Standard Model particles, including neutrinos [6,7,8,9,10]. We constrain the thermally averaged self-annihilation cross section hσAVi for WIMP pair annihilation for masses from 1 GeV to 10 TeV This is the first search for WIMPs from the Milky Way based on data acquired by the SuperKamiokande detector and extending to dark matter masses below 10 GeV. As the atmospheric neutrino background affects both regions, any excess of events in the on-source data would indicate an additional source of neutrinos from the area around the Galactic center
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