Exploring boosted dark matter scenarios

using IceCube
Atri Bhattacharya
Universit de Lige
Fundamental particles and their interactions

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What's so special about neutrinos?

Weakest of interactions among all the elementary

particles making up matter (i.e. leptons and quarks)
Every second several hundred billion neutrinos pass
through the average human body and you don't feel a
thing
Neutrinos pass through the earth usually completely
unaffected*
No electric charge and almost no mass**
* Interaction strength increases with energy, beyond 10 15 eV they start getting attenuated
by earth
** 10-6 elec. mass, but not zero
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 Where are they produced?

Artificial Natural
Nuclear reactors Relics from the
Particle early universe
accelerators Sun
Nuclear bombs Supernovae
Atmospheric
Cosmic rays
interacting in the
atmosphere
Astrophysical
sources
AGN, GRB,
Starburst
galaxies

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Outline

Cosmic rays and neutrinos at the UHE

IceCube: The first km3 neutrino telescope
Boosted dark matter and its implications for IC
Takeaway

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Fluxes in the UHE

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UHE flux

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Particles in the UHE regime Cosmic Rays

Ultra-High Energy
Incident (lab-frame) energy: E 10 eV (= 1 PeV)
Typical equivalent beam energy at LHC: 10 TeV
Saturation of proton flux at GZK energies: EGZK 10 eV
Well understood standard model mechanism for resonant
production

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The theory of UHE particle production

VERY HIGH ENERGY

Conditions necessary for UHE acceleration

Magnetic field (B)
Matter (, ) and radiation () densities
Shock fronts

The Fermi shock acc mechanism

Order 1 and 2
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UHE particle sources: Astrophysical objects

Extragalactic
Active Galactic Nuclei
Gamma Ray Bursts
Starburst Galaxies
Others: BL Lacs, Choked sources
Galactic
Pulsars
Galactic Supernovae
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Production followed by propagation

Typical flavour ratio of (anti-)neutrinos at

production:
= 1:2:0

Standard neutrino oscillation ratios averaged out

to 1:1:1
Even if very different spectrum of neutrino flavours are
produced at source (e.g., from some exotic source), due to
the large distances of propagation the differences in the
shape of flux observed at the detector are greatly
diminished
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Difficulties with detecting UHE

Neutrino interactions at ~ TeV, dominantly via deeply

inelastic scattering
Large volume detectors required to capture resulting pattern (no
longer ring-like)
For muons and taus, necessary to detect tracks that can run for
several km

If the expected source is an (or a class of) extragalactic

source(s), the flux is tiny
1/d effect
But, the flux arrives without intervention from intergalactic medium
and so on
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What do we already know about UHE
particles?

Cosmic Rays @
Earth

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Estimate the expected neutrino flux

...using the cosmic ray flux as benchmark

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Estimate the expected neutrino flux

...using the cosmic ray flux as benchmark

If you built a detector with instrumented volume of 1km
you would be able to see a maximum of 3040
events/yr

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Solution? Build a
kmdetector!

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 Location: ~South Pole
89 59 24 S, 63 27 11 W

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Amundsen-Scott
10 South Pole Station

Column 1
6
Column 2
Column 3

One
4 of the 86 IceCube Lab
IceCube strings

0 17
Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4
IceCube The first km neutrino detector

Large area of exposure

1 km3 eff. detector volume
Ice Cerenkov detector
Ultra-clear permanent bed of
ice
Capability of flavour
discrimination
Tracks from muons
Cascades from hadronic
decays
Looking for down-going
neutrinos from possibly
extra-galactic sources
Earth is opaque to UHE nu's

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Reconstructing events @ IceCube

Muon Tracks Cascades

Charged current interaction Charged current interaction
of the muon-neutrino of the electron-neutrino and
tau-neutrino
Clear tracks and excellent
direction reconstruction Neutral current interactions
of all flavours
Energy reconstruction is
indirect energy loss along Excellent energy but poorer
track direction reconstruction

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Signal and backgrounds

Signal
Ultra-high energy neutrinos from unknown
(astrophysical?) source(s)
Known background:
Atmospheric neutrinos: Cosmic ray collisions with
atmosphere leading to production of pions, kaon, D-
mesons(!), with further decay to neutrinos
Atmospheric charged leptons: Same production
mechanism as above (often associated)
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 Muon Track

Cascades Double Bang

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Backgrounds

Known background:
Atmospheric neutrinos: Simulations to estimate flux

Conventional from pion decays, well known, experimentally studied spectrum @
AMANDA, dominant background up to ~ 5075 TeV

Prompt Less well known*, expected to be low, perhaps show up around 100 TeV
Atmospheric charged leptons: Most gets absorbed by the ~ 1.5 km rock
between IceTop and the detector

Some muons trickle through, but this flux is also well understood and modeled
Other charged particles: Absorbed in the 1.5 km deep intervening rock

* Large uncertainties in QCD calculations from PDFs, factorisation scales, etc. See
AB et al JHEP 1506 (2015) 110 & JHEP 1611 (2016) 167
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Rundown of IceCubes success

2011 First ever PeV (= 106 GeV!) events detected

Cascades @ 1.06 (Bert) and 1.1 PeV (Ernie)

2012 3rd PeV event (@2.1 PeV) detected

2013 First full spectrum data of contained vertex events (HESE)

662 day runtime
27 events @ E 30 TeV (incl. bkg.)

2015 4-yr HESE spectrum

1347 day runtime
57 events (incl. bkg. ~ 2022 events)

2016 Through going (interaction vertex outside the detector) muons

over 6 yrs
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Full HESE data over ~4-yr (1347-day) runtime

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Upshot? A handle on flux spectra and
normalisation

Expected: ~ 2.58 (HESE)

~2.13 (Muons)
If diffuse flux from astrophysical source:

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But fine-print reveals issues

Problems with uniform

power-law explanation
Gap in the
400 TeV1 PeV energies
Nothing beyond 2.1 PeV
Despite 6.3 PeV

Glashow resonance
window
Too steep uniform

power-law flux
conflict with low-energy
data

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The case for Boosted
Dark Matter

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Boosted Dark Matter

Weakly interacting particles streaming at

relativistic speeds
Not your garden variety DM
Galaxy rotation curves
Standard distribution profiles
Annual modulation in direct searches
Possible origin
Decays of heavier particles in the dark sector
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Boosted Dark Matter: A Skeletal Model

Hypothesise existence of a two-component DM sector

Very heavy scalar DM species (, PDM)

Non-thermal in origin

Frozen out of interactions with SM particles completely

Only decays to a lighter DM within the sector
Lighter DM species (, TDM), m m

Stable, Fermionic

Predominantly produced via two-body decay of PDM:

Weak interactions with nuclei mediated by (BSM)
(pseudo-)scalar/neutral gauge boson
AB, Raj Gandhi, Aritra Gupta
JCAP 1503 (2015) 03, 027
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Boosted Dark Matter: Properties

PDM
Large decay lifetime, >1020s
Dominant contributor to relic abundance of universe

TDM
Produced ~ monochromatically, energy of m/2
Neutral current interaction with nuclei,
mediated by a/S/Z
Analogous to N neutral current interaction
Does not contribute to co-moving DM features
E.g. galaxy rotation curves, etc.
Low N cross-section evades usual direct search bounds
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Role for boosted DM
aka three distinct components might be ganging up

PeV+ events coming from N

scattering
Mediated by S/p/Z' (mZ'~ 4 TeV)
Upper limit to event rates set
by PDM mass (m~ 5 PeV)
Essentially monochromatic
spectrum, smeared by red-shift
and interaction inelasticity
Total number of PeV+ events
sets the flux normalisation
1/ , 1021 s

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Role for boosted DM
aka three distinct components might be ganging up

Sub-PeV [10 TeV400

TeV] events from a
steeply falling
astrophysical spectrum

Plus: Neutrinos from

decay of mediator
produced in three-body
decay of heavy PDM

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Role for boosted DM
aka three distinct components might be ganging up

Astro flux with softer spectra,

and lower normalisation

Improved consistency with

gap and PeV events

Multi-PeV events kinematically

forbidden beyond upper threshold

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Other similar/related studies

Pseudoscalar mediator studied in a follow-up study

[Kopp et al, JHEP 1504 (2015) 105]:

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Other similar/related studies

Pseudoscalar mediator studied in a follow-up study

[Kopp et al, JHEP 1504 (2015) 105]
At lower mass scales (~ 1 GeV), prospects of using
existing/upcoming detectors such as Super-
K/Hyper-K [Agashe et al, JCAP 1410 (2014) no.10,
062], DUNE and others have been studied

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Takeaway

IceCube is a novel neutrino detector that complements existing

DM searches significantly
Direct searches for boosted DM at substantially high energies (PeV+),
not expected to be caught by conventional direct searches
Present 3-yr/4-yr results compatible with different boosted DM scenarios
involving at least two DM species

Watch out for gap, if it persists with future data such a feature will be in
(stronger) tension with uniform power-law explanations and hint toward a multi-
component-flux explanation for the event spectrum
As an indirect search detector, looking for galactic/extragalactic from
DM decay/ann. at TeV+ energies
A 100 TeV bump in the 4-yr data may have its roots in DM decay/ann.

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Future plans: IC Signal

Investigation into consistency of observed IC data with

classes of astrophysical sources
GRBs mostly ruled out, but choked sources, others?
Dark matter signatures?
Indirect search for decays/annihilation to SM particles
Direct search for boosted DM
Direction of arrival expected to provide some additional info
Glashow resonance non-observation expected to
provide some flavour info about incoming flux
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Future plans: IC Background

Prompt neutrino flux remains uncertain

...though recent computations show it is lower than
previously expected
Investigate exotic QCD models such as intrinsic
charm in nucleons
Not observable at colliders such as LHC: requires
extremely forward rapidities
Non-observation of prompt sets strong limits, perhaps
ruling out
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Future plans: Neutrino oscillation merging
long baseline expts and IC

Investigate non-standard effects in oscillation

Non-standard interactions (NSI) are a generic

phenomenological procedure for parametrising non-
std.effects
Currently expected to be studied at the planned DUNE
experiment

Deep core in IceCube collects atmospheric from 10 GeV

and up, and provides decent flavour discrimination

Combine DUNE, e.g., and IC to improve bounds on NSI

matrix elements
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Thank you!

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Example: Imaginary source

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IceCube for indirect DM searches

IceCube is capable of detecting neutrinos produced as

secondaries from DM decays/annihilation
from DM decay/ann. expected to supplement astrophysical flux
DM ann. is currently disfavoured due to lack of substantial
excess pointing toward the galactic centre
flux from DM decay receives roughly equivalent contribution from
galactic and extragalactic origins, consistent with isotropic distribution

An excess found at ~ 100 TeV in the 4-yr data, in tension with

uniform power law fits
Could be from DM decay

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IceCube for indirect DM searches

= 4.209 = 4.209
p-value = 0.061 p-value = 0.061

= 4.188 = 4.445
p-value = 0.060 p-value = 0.072

AB, Mary Hall Reno, Ina Sarcevic

JHEP 1406 (2014) 110
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Difficulties with detecting UHE

Neutrino interactions at ~ TeV, dominantly via

deeply inelastic charged current scattering

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Difficulties with detecting UHE

Neutrino interactions at ~ TeV, dominantly via

deeply inelastic neutral current scattering

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