Search for secluded dark matter towards the Galactic Centre with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

Searches for dark matter (DM) have not provided any solid evidence for the existence of weakly interacting massive particles in the GeV-TeV mass range. Coincidentally, the scale of new physics is being pushed by collider searches well beyond the TeV domain. This situation strongly motivates the exploration of DM masses much larger than a TeV. Secluded scenarios contain a natural way around the unitarity bound on the DM mass, via the early matter domination induced by the mediator of its interactions with the Standard Model. High-energy neutrinos constitute one of the very few direct accesses to energy scales above a few TeV. An indirect search for secluded DM signals has been performed with the ANTARES neutrino telescope using data from 2007 to 2015. Upper limits on the DM annihilation cross section for DM masses up to 6 PeV are presented and discussed.

Automated summary

Searches for dark matter in the GeV-TeV mass range have not provided solid evidence for the existence of weakly interacting massive particles. However, the exploration of dark matter masses beyond the TeV range has become more important, as the scale of new physics is being pushed by collider searches. Secluded scenarios offer a natural way to overcome the unitarity bound on dark matter mass through early matter domination. An indirect search for secluded dark matter signals using the ANTARES neutrino telescope has been performed, presenting upper limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section for masses up to 6 PeV.