2024/01/15 by Ye Xu, Xu, Ye
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.07617
openalex publication_date 2024/01/15 · openalex created_date 2024/01/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is assumed that superheavy dark matter particles with O(EeV) mass may decay to relativistic milli-charged particles (MCPs). The upward-going MCPs passing through the Earth could be measured by the fluorescence detectors (FD) of the Pierre Auger observatory (Auger). The massless hidden photon model was taken for MCPs to interact with nuclei, so that the numbers and fluxes of expected MCPs and neutrinos may be evaluated at the FD of Auger. Based on the assumption that no events are observed at the FD of Auger in 14 years, the corresponding upper limits on MCP fluxes were calculated at 90% C. L.. These results indicated that MCPs could be directly detected in the secondaries' energy range O(1EeV)-O(10EeV) at the FD of Auger, when 3×10-13\lesssimε2\lesssim 10-3. And a new region of 10 MeV < mMCP < 1 PeV and 10-7 \lesssim ε \lesssim 3×10-2 is ruled out in the mMCP-ε plane with 14 years of Auger data.