Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Superheavy supersymmetric dark matter as the origin of the KM3NeT ultrahigh energy signal

Yongsoo Jho1, Seong Chan Park1,2,*, and Chang Sub Shin2,3,4,†

  • *Contact author: sc.park@yonsei.ac.kr
  • †Contact author: csshin@cnu.ac.kr

Phys. Rev. D 112, 115004 – Published 1 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7jgm-f852

Abstract

We propose an explanation for the recently reported ultrahigh-energy neutrino signal at KM3NeT, which shows no clear association with known astrophysical sources. While decaying dark matter in the Galactic Center is a natural candidate, the observed arrival direction strongly suggests an extragalactic origin. We introduce a multicomponent dark matter scenario in which the components are part of a supermultiplet, with supersymmetry ensuring a nearly degenerate mass spectrum among the fields with different spins. In this setup, a cosmologically long-lived fermionic state decays into a slightly lighter bosonic dark matter state, producing a boosted neutrino spectrum with energy Eν∼100  PeV, determined by the mass difference. The heavy-to-light decay occurs at a cosmological redshift of z∼a few or higher, leading to an isotropic directional distribution of the signal.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (74)

  1. S. Aiello et al. (KM3NeT Collaboration), Nature (London) 638, 376 (2025).
  2. J. Shimoda and T. Wada, Astrophys. J. 986, 213 (2025).
  3. S. W. Li, P. Machado, D. Naredo-Tuero, and T. Schwemberger, arXiv:2502.04508.
  4. M. S. Muzio, T. Yuan, and L. Lu, arXiv:2502.06944.
  5. O. Adriani et al. (KM3NeT Collaboration), Astrophys. J. Lett. 984, L41 (2025).
  6. T. A. Dzhatdoev, arXiv:2502.11434.
  7. E. Podlesnyi and F. Oikonomou, arXiv:2502.12111.
  8. A. Neronov, F. Oikonomou, and D. Semikoz, arXiv:2502.12986.
  9. P. De La Torre Luque, D. Gaggero, D. Grasso, A. Marinelli, and M. Rocamora, arXiv:2502.18268.
  10. A. Boccia and F. Iocco, Phys. Rev. D 112, 063045 (2025).
  11. V. Brdar and D. S. Chattopadhyay, arXiv:2502.21299.
  12. D. Borah, N. Das, N. Okada, and P. Sarmah, Phys. Rev. D 111, 123022 (2025).
  13. K. Kohri, P. K. Paul, and N. Sahu, Phys. Rev. D 112, L031703 (2025).
  14. Y. Narita and W. Yin, arXiv:2503.07776.
  15. P. Simeon, N. Globus, K. S. S. Barrow, and R. Blandford, arXiv:2503.10795.
  16. S. Jiang and F. P. Huang, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2025) 023.
  17. G. F. S. Alves, M. Hostert, and M. Pospelov, arXiv:2503.14419.
  18. R. Wang, J. Zhu, H. Li, and B.-Q. Ma, Res. Notes AAS 9, 65 (2025).
  19. B. Barman, A. Das, S. Jyoti Das, and M. Merchand, Phys. Rev. D 112, 035035 (2025).
  20. O. Adriani et al. (KM3NeT Collaboration), arXiv:2502.08387.
  21. O. Adriani et al. (KM3NeT, MessMapp Group, Fermi-LAT, Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m Telescope Group, SVOM Collaborations), arXiv:2502.08484.
  22. J.-C. Park, J. Kim, and S. C. Park, Phys. Lett. B 752, 59 (2016).
  23. J.-C. Park and S. C. Park, Phys. Lett. B 718, 1401 (2013).
  24. The Supersymmetric World: The Beginning of the Theory, edited by G. Kane and M. Shifman (World Scientific, Singapore, 2000).
  25. J. R. Ellis, J. S. Hagelin, D. V. Nanopoulos, K. A. Olive, and M. Srednicki, Nucl. Phys. B238, 453 (1984).
  26. H. P. Nilles, M. Srednicki, and D. Wyler, Phys. Lett. 120B, 346 (1983).
  27. E. Witten, Nucl. Phys. B188, 513 (1981).
  28. S. Dimopoulos and H. Georgi, Nucl. Phys. B193, 150 (1981).
  29. L. Susskind, Phys. Rep. 104, 181 (1984).
  30. L. Girardello and M. T. Grisaru, Nucl. Phys. B194, 65 (1982).
  31. L. J. Hall and L. Randall, Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 2939 (1990).
  32. R. Abbasi et al. (IceCube Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 104, 022002 (2021).
  33. R. Abbasi et al., Astrophys. J. 928, 50 (2022).
  34. M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube Collaboration), Nature (London) 591, 220 (2021); 592, E11 (2021).
  35. M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 98, 062003 (2018).
  36. A. Abdul Halim et al. (Pierre Auger Collaboration), Proc. Sci., ICRC2023 (2023) 1488.
  37. A. Albert et al. (ANTARES Collaboration), J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2024) 038.
  38. A. Salam and J. A. Strathdee, Nucl. Phys. B76, 477 (1974).
  39. D. Carney et al., SciPost Phys. Core 6, 075 (2023).
  40. N. Aghanim et al. (Planck Collaboration), Astron. Astrophys. 641, A6 (2020); 652, C4(E) (2021).
  41. B. Allanach and H. E. Haber, arXiv:2401.03827.
  42. R. L. Workman et al. (Particle Data Group), Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2022, 083C01 (2022).
  43. S. P. Martin, Adv. Ser. Dir. High Energy Phys. 18, 1 (1998).
  44. P. Bandyopadhyay, E. J. Chun, and R. Mandal, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2020) 019.
  45. B. Dasgupta and J. Kopp, Phys. Rep. 928, 1 (2021).
  46. D. J. H. Chung, P. Crotty, E. W. Kolb, and A. Riotto, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043503 (2001).
  47. E. W. Kolb and A. J. Long, Rev. Mod. Phys. 96, 045005 (2024).
  48. B. Carr, K. Kohri, Y. Sendouda, and J. Yokoyama, Rep. Prog. Phys. 84, 116902 (2021).
  49. A. Cheek, L. Heurtier, Y. F. Perez-Gonzalez, and J. Turner, Phys. Rev. D 105, 015022 (2022).
  50. D. Hooper, G. Krnjaic, and S. D. McDermott, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2019) 001.
  51. I. Masina, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 135, 552 (2020).
  52. K.-Y. Choi, E. Lkhagvadorj, and S. Mahapatra, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2025) 079.
  53. C. W. Bauer, N. L. Rodd, and B. R. Webber, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2021) 121.
  54. K. Murase and J. F. Beacom, Phys. Rev. D 82, 043008 (2010).
  55. K. Murase and J. F. Beacom, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2012) 043.
  56. S. Lee, Phys. Rev. D 58, 043004 (1998).
  57. A. Saldana-Lopez, A. Domínguez, P. G. Pérez-González, J. Finke, M. Ajello, J. R. Primack, V. S. Paliya, and A. Desai, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 507, 5144 (2021).
  58. C. Blanco, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2019) 013.
  59. A. Capanema and C. Blanco, Comput. Phys. Commun. 307, 109408 (2025).
  60. P. D. Bolton, F. F. Deppisch, and P. S. Bhupal Dev, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2020) 170.
  61. M.-Y. Wang, R. A. C. Croft, A. H. G. Peter, A. R. Zentner, and C. W. Purcell, Phys. Rev. D 88, 123515 (2013).
  62. C.-H. Chou and K.-W. Ng, Phys. Lett. B 594, 1 (2004).
  63. A. Abramowski et al. (H.E.S.S. Collaboration), Nature (London) 531, 476 (2016).
  64. M. Ackermann et al. (Fermi-LAT Collaboration), Astrophys. J. 799, 86 (2015).
  65. M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration), J. Phys. G 48, 060501 (2021).
  66. A. Castellina (Pierre Auger Collaboration), EPJ Web Conf. 210, 06002 (2019).
  67. Y. Jho and S. C. Park, Phys. Rev. D 104, 015018 (2021).
  68. Y. Jho, J.-C. Park, S. C. Park, and P.-Y. Tseng, Phys. Lett. B 811, 135863 (2020).
  69. Y. Jho, J.-C. Park, S. C. Park, and P.-Y. Tseng, arXiv:2101.11262.
  70. R. Barbier et al., Phys. Rep. 420, 1 (2005).
  71. H. K. Dreiner, Adv. Ser. Dir. High Energy Phys. 21, 565 (2010).
  72. L. J. Hall and M. Suzuki, Nucl. Phys. B231, 419 (1984).
  73. J. L. Goity and M. Sher, Phys. Lett. B 346, 69 (1995).
  74. H. K. Dreiner, C. Luhn, and M. Thormeier, Phys. Lett. B 653, 202 (2007).

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation