Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 831
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

Abstract

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 .