Neutrinos as a Gateway to the Dark Sector

Abstract

The existence of dark matter is one of the most important mysteries in modern astrophysics and particle physics. Although strong gravitational evidence supports its existence, the nature of dark matter, including its potential interactions with known particles, is still unknown. At the same time, the origin of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory remains uncertain. Scotogenic models, in which neutrino mass generation occurs through interactions with the dark sector, are some of the leading theories that motivate dark matter and neutrino interactions. If dark matter and neutrinos interact through a non-zero elastic scattering cross-section, this interaction could leave an observable signal in the high-energy neutrino flux observed by IceCube. The interaction between astrophysical neutrinos and dark matter is strongest in the Galactic Center, where the dark matter column density is highest. This leads to a correlated signal between neutrino energy and arrival direction. In this work, we perform a profile-binned likelihood analysis using ten years of IceCube data. By searching for anisotropies in the energy and direction distribution of the observed neutrino flux, we aim to constrain or potentially detect signatures of dark matter-neutrino interactions. Our analysis offers new insights into the possible coupling between high-energy neutrinos and dark matter, providing a novel approach to understanding both phenomena.