Search for GeV-scale dark matter annihilation in the Sun with IceCube DeepCore
R. Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, J. A. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, M. Ahrens, Jean-Marco Alameddine, Cyril Martin Alispach, A. A. Alves, N. M. Amin, K. Andeen, T. Anderson, G. Anton, C. Argüelles, Yosuke Ashida, Spencer Axani, X. Bai, Aswathi Balagopal, Anastasia Maria Barbano, S. W. Barwick, Benjamin Bastian, Vedant Basu, S. Baur, R. Bay, J. J. Beatty, K.-H. Becker, J. Becker Tjus, Chiara Bellenghi, S. BenZvi, D. Berley, E. Bernardini, D. Z. Besson, G. Binder, D. Bindig, E. Blaufuss, Summer Blot, Matthias Boddenberg, Federico Bontempo, Jürgen Borowka, S. Böser, O. Botner, J. Böttcher, Etienne Bourbeau, Federica Bradascio, J. Braun, Bennett Brinson, S. Bron, Jannes Brostean-Kaiser, Sally-Ann Browne, A. Burgman, Ryan T. Burley, R. S. Busse, Michael Campana, Erin Carnie-Bronca, C. Chen, Z. Chen, D. Chirkin, K. Choi, Brian Clark, K. Clark, Lew Classen, Alan Coleman, G. H. Collin, J. M. Conrad, Paul Coppin, Pablo Correa, D. F. Cowen, R. Cross, Christian Dappen, Pranav Dave, C. De Clercq, J. J. DeLaunay, D. Delgado López, H.-P. Dembinski, Kunal Deoskar, Abhishek Desai, P. Desiati, K. D. de Vries, G. de Wasseige, M. de With, T. DeYoung, A. Diaz, J. C. Díaz–Vélez, Markus Dittmer, Hrvoje Dujmović, M. Dunkman, M. A. DuVernois, Emily Dvorak, Thomas Ehrhardt, P. Eller, R. Engel, Hannah Erpenbeck, John Evans, P. A. Evenson, Kwok Lung Fan, A. R. Fazely, Nora Feigl, Sebastian Fiedlschuster, A. T. Fienberg, K. Filimonov
Abstract
The Sun provides an excellent target for studying spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering due to its high matter density and abundant hydrogen content. Dark matter particles from the Galactic halo can elastically interact with Solar nuclei, resulting in their capture and thermalization in the Sun. The captured dark matter can annihilate into Standard Model particles including an observable flux of neutrinos. We present the results of a search for low-energy ($<500\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$) neutrinos correlated with the direction of the Sun using 7 years of IceCube data. This work utilizes, for the first time, new optimized cuts to extend IceCube's sensitivity to dark matter mass down to 5 GeV. We find no significant detection of neutrinos from the Sun. Our observations exclude capture by spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering with cross section down to a few times ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}41}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$, assuming there is equilibrium with annihilation into neutrinos/antineutrinos for dark matter masses between 5 GeV and 100 GeV. These are the strongest constraints at GeV energies for dark matter annihilation directly to neutrinos.