Tracing tau-neutrinos from WIMP-annihilation

Abstract

Accumulation and annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the earth and the sun may be observed by the resulting neutrino signal. We demonstrate that, for certain parts of the SUSY parameter space, present and future neutrino telescopes can expect a higher rate of events due to tau-neutrinos than of events due to muon-neutrinos. We show how $\nu_{\tau}\leftrightarrow\nu_{\mu}$ oscillations, and in the case of the sun also scattering, absorption and regeneration, modify the signal expectation. We find that most currently proposed neutralino models predict equal or increased muon fluxes if $\nu_{\tau}\leftrightarrow\nu_{\mu}$ oscillations are included.