Eur. Phys. J. C (2020) 80: 819
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-8069-5

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Velocity independent constraints on spin-dependent DM-nucleon interactions from IceCube and PICO

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
² DESY, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany
³ Science Faculty CP230, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
⁴ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
⁵ Department of Physics, Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden
⁶ Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland
⁷ Department of Physics, Marquette University, 53201, Milwaukee, WI, USA
⁸ Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, 16802, University Park, PA, USA
⁹ Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058, Erlangen, Germany
¹⁰ Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA
¹¹ III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, 52056, Aachen, Germany
¹² Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 57701, Rapid City, SD, USA
¹³ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institut für Kernphysik, 76021, Karlsruhe, Germany
¹⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, 92697, Irvine, CA, USA
¹⁵ Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099, Mainz, Germany
¹⁶ Department of Physics, University of California, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
¹⁷ Department of Physics, Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA
¹⁸ Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA
¹⁹ Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany
²⁰ Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany
²¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, 14627, Rochester, NY, USA
²² Department of Physics, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD, USA
²³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, 66045, Lawrence, KS, USA
²⁴ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
²⁵ Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, 44221, Dortmund, Germany
²⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, S-75120, Uppsala, Sweden
²⁷ Department of Physics, Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
²⁸ Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 48149, Munster, Germany
²⁹ School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 30332, Atlanta, GA, USA
³⁰ Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, 16419, Suwon, Korea
³¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA
³² Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Dienst ELEM, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
³³ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, 16802, University Park, PA, USA
³⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
³⁵ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
³⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
³⁷ Department of Physics, Southern University, 70813, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
³⁸ Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
³⁹ Physik-department, Technische Universität München, 85748, Garching, Germany
⁴⁰ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, T6G 2E1, Edmonton, AB, Canada
⁴¹ Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, 5005, Adelaide, Australia
⁴² Department of Physics and Institute for Global Prominent Research, Chiba University, 263-8522, Chiba, Japan
⁴³ CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University, 30314, Atlanta, GA, USA
⁴⁴ Department of Physics, University of Texas at Arlington, Box 19059, 502 Yates St., Science Hall Rm 108, 76019, Arlington, TX, USA
⁴⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, 11794-3800, Stony Brook, NY, USA
⁴⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, 35487, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
⁴⁷ Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA
⁴⁸ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 54022, River Falls, WI, USA
⁴⁹ Department of Physics, Yale University, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA
⁵⁰ Department of Physics, Mercer University, 31207-0001, Macon, GA, USA
⁵¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., 99508, Anchorage, AK, USA
⁵² Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, OX1 3PU, Oxford, UK
⁵³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, 90095, Los Angeles, CA, USA
⁵⁴ Department of Physics, Queen’s University, K7L 3N6, Kingston, Canada
⁵⁵ Departament de Física Aplicada, IGIC, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46730, Gandia, Spain
⁵⁶ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 99354, Richland, Washington, USA
⁵⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 60208, Evanston, IL, USA
⁵⁸ Enrico Fermi Institute, KICP and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA
⁵⁹ Department of Physics, Indiana University South Bend, 46634, South Bend, IN, USA
⁶⁰ Department of Physics, Drexel University, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA
⁶¹ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 60510, Batavia, IL, USA
⁶² Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 01000, Mexico City, México D. F., México
⁶³ Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India
⁶⁴ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, T6G 2E1, Edmonton, Canada
⁶⁵ Department of Physics, Laurentian University, P3E 2C6, Sudbury, Canada
⁶⁶ Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University in Prague, 12800, Prague, Czech Republic
⁶⁷ Département de Physique, Université de Montréal, H3C 3J7, Montréal, Canada
⁶⁸ SNOLAB, P3Y 1N2, Lively, ON, Canada
⁶⁹ Northeastern Illinois University, 60625, Chicago, IL, USA
⁷⁰ Bio-Inspired Materials and Devices Laboratory (BMDL), Center for Energy Harvesting Material and Systems (CEHMS), Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Received: 31 July 2019
Accepted: 22 May 2020
Published online: 4 September 2020

Abstract

Adopting the Standard Halo Model (SHM) of an isotropic Maxwellian velocity distribution for dark matter (DM) particles in the Galaxy, the most stringent current constraints on their spin-dependent scattering cross-section with nucleons come from the IceCube neutrino observatory and the PICO-60 ${\text{C}}_3{\text{F}}_8$ superheated bubble chamber experiments. The former is sensitive to high energy neutrinos from the self-annihilation of DM particles captured in the Sun, while the latter looks for nuclear recoil events from DM scattering off nucleons. Although slower DM particles are more likely to be captured by the Sun, the faster ones are more likely to be detected by PICO. Recent N-body simulations suggest significant deviations from the SHM for the smooth halo component of the DM, while observations hint at a dominant fraction of the local DM being in substructures. We use the method of Ferrer et al. (JCAP 1509: 052, 2015) to exploit the complementarity between the two approaches and derive conservative constraints on DM-nucleon scattering. Our results constrain ${\sigma }_{\mathrm{SD}}\lesssim 3\times {10}^{-39}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ ($6\times {10}^{-38}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$) at $\gtrsim 90\%$ C.L. for a DM particle of mass 1 TeV annihilating into ${\tau }^{+}{\tau }^{-}$ ($b\overline{b}$) with a local density of ${\rho }_{\mathrm{DM}}=0.3{\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{cm}}^3$. The constraints scale inversely with ${\rho }_{\mathrm{DM}}$ and are independent of the DM velocity distribution.