https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4582-y
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
First search for dark matter annihilations in the Earth with the IceCube detector
IceCube Collaboration
1
III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, 52056, Aachen, Germany
2
Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 5005, Australia
3
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA
4
CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA, 30314, USA
5
School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
6
Department of Physics, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70813, USA
7
Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
8
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
9
Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
10
Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany
11
Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Nussallee 12, 53115, Bonn, Germany
12
Science Faculty CP230, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
13
Dienst ELEM, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
14
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
15
Department of Physics and Institute for Global Prominent Research, Chiba University, Chiba, 263-8522, Japan
16
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
17
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
18
Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
19
Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
20
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
21
Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, 44221, Dortmund, Germany
22
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA
23
Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E1, Canada
24
Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058, Erlangen, Germany
25
Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland
26
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, 9000, Gent, Belgium
27
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
28
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA
29
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
30
Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
31
Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099, Mainz, Germany
32
Department of Physics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, 53201, USA
33
Université de Mons, 7000, Mons, Belgium
34
Physik-department, Technische Universität München, 85748, Garching, Germany
35
Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 48149, Münster, Germany
36
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA
37
Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
38
Department of Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3NP, UK
39
Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
40
Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD, 57701, USA
41
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, WI, 54022, USA
42
Department of Physics, Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden
43
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3800, USA
44
Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea
45
Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A7, Canada
46
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA
47
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
48
Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
49
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA
50
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 75120, Uppsala, Sweden
51
Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany
52
DESY, 15735, Zeuthen, Germany
53
Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo, 113-0032, Japan
* e-mail: jan.lunemann@vub.ac.be
** e-mail: jan.kunnen@vub.ac.be
Received:
6
September
2016
Accepted:
16
December
2016
Published online:
8
February
2017
We present the results of the first IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in the center of the Earth. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), candidates for dark matter, can scatter off nuclei inside the Earth and fall below its escape velocity. Over time the captured WIMPs will be accumulated and may eventually self-annihilate. Among the annihilation products only neutrinos can escape from the center of the Earth. Large-scale neutrino telescopes, such as the cubic kilometer IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, can be used to search for such neutrino fluxes. Data from 327 days of detector livetime during 2011/2012 were analyzed. No excess beyond the expected background from atmospheric neutrinos was detected. The derived upper limits on the annihilation rate of WIMPs in the Earth and the resulting muon flux are an order of magnitude stronger than the limits of the last analysis performed with data from IceCube’s predecessor AMANDA. The limits can be translated in terms of a spin-independent WIMP–nucleon cross section. For a WIMP mass of 50 GeV this analysis results in the most restrictive limits achieved with IceCube data.
© The Author(s), 2017