2019/03/31 by Atri Bhattacharya, Arman Esmaili, Sergio Palomares-Ruiz +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE #hep-ex #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2019/05/051
published as JCAP 05 (2019) 051 · 36 pages, 14 figures; v2: Correction to limit on cross-section for annihilation into nu_e anti-nu_e (Figure 11)
arxiv created 2021/05/04 · arxiv updated 2021/05/05
In view of the IceCube's 6-year high-energy starting events (HESE) sample, we revisit the possibility that the updated data may be better explained by a combination of neutrino fluxes from dark matter decay and an isotropic astrophysical power-law than purely by the latter. We find that the combined two-component flux qualitatively improves the fit to the observed data over a purely astrophysical one, and discuss how these updated fits compare against a similar analysis done with the 4-year HESE data. We also update fits involving dark matter decay via multiple channels, without any contribution from the astrophysical flux. We find that a DM-only explanation is not excluded by neutrino data alone. Finally, we also consider the possibility of a signal from dark matter annihilations and perform analogous analyses to the case of decays, commenting on its implications.