https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6273-3
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Search for neutrinos from decaying dark matter with IceCube
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
Department of Physics, University of Texas at Arlington, 502 Yates St., Science Hall Rm 108, Box 19059, Arlington, TX, 76019, USA
5
CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA, 30314, USA
6
School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
7
Department of Physics, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70813, USA
8
Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
9
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
10
Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
11
Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany
12
Science Faculty CP230, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
13
Dienst ELEM, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 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, Ghent, 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
SNOLAB, 1039 Regional Road 24, Creighton Mine 9, Lively, ON, P3Y 1N2, Canada
30
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
31
Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
32
Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099, Mainz, Germany
33
Department of Physics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, 53201, USA
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 and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA
43
Department of Physics, Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden
44
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3800, USA
45
Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea
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, Uppsala University, Box 516, 75120, Uppsala, Sweden
50
Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany
51
DESY, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany
* e-mail: hrvoje.dujmovic@gmail.com
Received:
10
April
2018
Accepted:
21
September
2018
Published online:
16
October
2018
With the observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, interest has risen in models of PeV-mass decaying dark matter particles to explain the observed flux. We present two dedicated experimental analyses to test this hypothesis. One analysis uses 6 years of IceCube data focusing on muon neutrino ‘track’ events from the Northern Hemisphere, while the second analysis uses 2 years of ‘cascade’ events from the full sky. Known background components and the hypothetical flux from unstable dark matter are fitted to the experimental data. Since no significant excess is observed in either analysis, lower limits on the lifetime of dark matter particles are derived: we obtain the strongest constraint to date, excluding lifetimes shorter than at 90% CL for dark matter masses above
.
© The Author(s), 2018