Multi-messenger high-energy signatures of decaying dark matter and the effect of background light

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has measured astrophysical neutrinos using through-going and starting events in the TeV to PeV energy range. The origin of these astrophysical neutrinos is still largely unresolved, and among their potential sources could be dark matter decay. Measurements of the astrophysical flux using muon neutrinos are in slight tension with starting event measurements. This tension is driven by an excess observed in the energy range of 40-200 TeV with respect to the through-going expectation. Previous works have considered the possibility that this excess may be due to heavy dark matter decay and have placed constraints using gamma-ray and neutrino data. However, these constraints are not without caveats, since they rely on the modeling of the astrophysical neutrino flux and the sources of gamma-ray emission. In this work, we derive background-agnostic galactic and extragalactic constraints on decaying dark matter by considering Tibet-AS-y data, Fermi-LAT diffuse data, and the IceCube high-energy starting event sample. For the gamma-ray limits, we investigate the uncertainties on secondary emission from electromagnetic cascades during propagation arising from the unknown intensity of the extragalactic background light. We find that such uncertainties amount to a variation of up to similar to 55% in the gamma-ray limits derived with extragalactic data. Our results imply that a significant fraction of the astrophysical neutrino flux could be due to dark matter and that ruling it out depends on the assumptions on the gamma-ray and neutrino background. The latter depends on the yet unidentified sources.

Automated summary

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has measured astrophysical neutrinos using events in the TeV to PeV energy range. The origin of these neutrinos is still unknown, but it could potentially be caused by dark matter decay. Previous studies have suggested that an excess in the energy range of 40-200 TeV may be due to heavy dark matter decay, but there are uncertainties in the modeling of the neutrino flux and gamma-ray emission. In this work, constraints on decaying dark matter are derived using data from multiple sources, and it is found that the astrophysical neutrino flux could be largely contributed by dark matter, but ruling it out depends on assumptions about gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds.