- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

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
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Constraints on heavy asymmetric and symmetric dark matter from the Glashow resonance

Qinrui Liu1,2,3,*, Ningqiang Song4,†, and Aaron C. Vincent1,2,3,‡

  • *Contact author: qinrui.liu@queensu.ca
  • †Contact author: songnq@itp.ac.cn
  • ‡Contact author: aaron.vincent@queensu.ca
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 111, L111701 – Published 5 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rctg-fdrt

Abstract

The decay of asymmetric dark matter (ADM) can lead to distinct neutrino signatures characterized by an asymmetry between neutrinos and antineutrinos. In the high-energy regime, the Glashow resonant interaction ν¯e+e−→W− yields an increase in sensitivity to the neutrino flux, and stands out as the only way of discerning the antineutrino component in the diffuse high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux. This offers a unique opportunity in the search for dark matter with masses above the PeV scale. We examine the neutrino signal stemming from ADM decay and set the first stringent constraints on ADM lifetime τX. For ADM with mass mX≳10  PeV, we exclude τX≲1029  s using the data from the recent IceCube search for Glashow resonance events. Our projections further show that sensitivities at the forthcoming IceCube-Gen2 could approach 1030  s, depending on the decay channel. The current constraints on symmetric dark matter decay to neutrinos are also improved by up to a factor of 3 thanks to the Glashow resonance.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (70)

  1. IceCube Collaboration, Evidence for high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos at the IceCube detector, Science 342, 1242856 (2013).
  2. S. L. Glashow, Resonant scattering of antineutrinos, Phys. Rev. 118, 316 (1960).
  3. IceCube Collaboration, Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube, Nature (London) 591, 220 (2021); IceCube Collaboration592, E11 (2021).
  4. R. W. Brown and F. W. Stecker, Cosmic ray neutrino tests for heavier weak bosons and cosmic antimatter, Phys. Rev. D 26, 373 (1982).
  5. L. A. Anchordoqui, H. Goldberg, F. Halzen, and T. J. Weiler, Neutrinos as a diagnostic of high energy astrophysical processes, Phys. Lett. B 621, 18 (2005).
  6. A. Bhattacharya, R. Gandhi, W. Rodejohann, and A. Watanabe, The Glashow resonance at IceCube: signatures, event rates and pp vs. pγ interactions, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2011) 017.
  7. Z.-z. Xing and S. Zhou, The Glashow resonance as a discriminator of UHE cosmic neutrinos originating from pγ and pp collisions, Phys. Rev. D 84, 033006 (2011).
  8. V. Barger, J. Learned, and S. Pakvasa, IceCube PeV cascade events initiated by electron-antineutrinos at Glashow resonance, Phys. Rev. D 87, 037302 (2013).
  9. A. Bhattacharya, R. Gandhi, W. Rodejohann, and A. Watanabe, On the interpretation of IceCube cascade events in terms of the Glashow resonance, arXiv:1209.2422.
  10. L. A. Anchordoqui, T. C. Paul, L. H. M. da Silva, D. F. Torres, and B. J. Vlcek, What IceCube data tell us about neutrino emission from star-forming galaxies (so far), Phys. Rev. D 89, 127304 (2014).
  11. V. Barger, L. Fu, J. G. Learned, D. Marfatia, S. Pakvasa, and T. J. Weiler, Glashow resonance as a window into cosmic neutrino sources, Phys. Rev. D 90, 121301 (2014).
  12. A. Palladino, G. Pagliaroli, F. L. Villante, and F. Vissani, Double pulses and cascades above 2 PeV in IceCube, Eur. Phys. J. C 76, 52 (2016).
  13. L. A. Anchordoqui, M. M. Block, L. Durand, P. Ha, J. F. Soriano, and T. J. Weiler, Evidence for a break in the spectrum of astrophysical neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 95, 083009 (2017).
  14. D. Biehl, A. Fedynitch, A. Palladino, T. J. Weiler, and W. Winter, Astrophysical neutrino production diagnostics with the Glashow resonance, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2017) 033.
  15. G.-y. Huang and Q. Liu, Hunting the Glashow resonance with PeV neutrino telescopes, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2020) 005.
  16. G.-y. Huang, M. Lindner, and N. Volmer, Inferring astrophysical neutrino sources from the Glashow resonance, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2023) 164.
  17. Q. Liu, N. Song, and A. C. Vincent, Probing neutrino production in high-energy astrophysical neutrino sources with the Glashow resonance, Phys. Rev. D 108, 043022 (2023).
  18. G.-y. Huang, Discovery potential of the Glashow resonance in an air shower neutrino telescope, Chin. Phys. C 48, 085107 (2024).
  19. F. W. Stecker, S. T. Scully, S. Liberati, and D. Mattingly, Searching for traces of Planck-scale physics with high energy neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 91, 045009 (2015).
  20. I. M. Shoemaker and K. Murase, Probing BSM neutrino physics with flavor and spectral distortions: Prospects for future high-energy neutrino telescopes, Phys. Rev. D 93, 085004 (2016).
  21. M. Bustamante, New limits on neutrino decay from the Glashow resonance of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, arXiv:2004.06844.
  22. D.-H. Xu and S.-J. Rong, Connect the Lorentz violation to the Glashow resonance event, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 38, 2350029 (2023).
  23. M. Blennow, E. Fernandez-Martinez, A. Olivares-Del Campo, S. Pascoli, S. Rosauro-Alcaraz, and A. V. Titov, Neutrino portals to dark matter, Eur. Phys. J. C 79, 555 (2019).
  24. J. B. G. Alvey and M. Fairbairn, Linking scalar dark matter and neutrino masses with IceCube 170922A, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2019) 041.
  25. S. Baumholzer, V. Brdar, P. Schwaller, and A. Segner, Shining light on the scotogenic model: Interplay of colliders and cosmology, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2020) 136.
  26. C. Boehm, Y. Farzan, T. Hambye, S. Palomares-Ruiz, and S. Pascoli, Is it possible to explain neutrino masses with scalar dark matter?, Phys. Rev. D 77, 043516 (2008).
  27. M. Escudero, N. Rius, and V. Sanz, Sterile neutrino portal to dark matter I: The U(1)B−L case, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2017) 045.
  28. Y. Farzan and E. Ma, Dirac neutrino mass generation from dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 86, 033007 (2012).
  29. Y. Farzan and S. Palomares-Ruiz, Dips in the diffuse supernova neutrino background, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2014) 014.
  30. H. H. Patel, S. Profumo, and B. Shakya, Loop dominated signals from neutrino portal dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 101, 095001 (2020).
  31. C. Garcia-Cely and J. Heeck, Neutrino lines from Majoron dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2017) 102.
  32. R. Coy and T. Hambye, Neutrino lines from DM decay induced by high-scale seesaw interactions, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2021) 101.
  33. C. A. Argüelles, A. Kheirandish, and A. C. Vincent, Imaging galactic dark matter with high-energy cosmic neutrinos, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 201801 (2017).
  34. C. A. Argüelles, A. Diaz, A. Kheirandish, A. Olivares-Del-Campo, I. Safa, and A. C. Vincent, Dark matter annihilation to neutrinos, Rev. Mod. Phys. 93, 035007 (2021).
  35. C. A. Argüelles, D. Delgado, A. Friedlander, A. Kheirandish, I. Safa, A. C. Vincent, and H. White, Dark matter decay to neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 108, 123021 (2023).
  36. D. E. Kaplan, M. A. Luty, and K. M. Zurek, Asymmetric dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 79, 115016 (2009).
  37. E. Nardi, F. Sannino, and A. Strumia, Decaying dark matter can explain the e± excesses, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2009) 043.
  38. S. Chang and L. Goodenough, Charge asymmetric cosmic ray signals from dark matter decay, Phys. Rev. D 84, 023524 (2011).
  39. I. Masina and F. Sannino, Charge asymmetric cosmic rays as a probe of flavor violating asymmetric dark matter, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2011) 021.
  40. I. Masina, P. Panci, and F. Sannino, Gamma ray constraints on flavor violating asymmetric dark matter, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 12 (2012) 002.
  41. I. Masina and F. Sannino, Hints of a charge asymmetry in the electron and positron cosmic-ray excesses, Phys. Rev. D 87, 123003 (2013).
  42. L. Feng and Z. Kang, Decaying asymmetric dark matter relaxes the AMS-Fermi tension, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2013) 008.
  43. Y. Zhao and K. M. Zurek, Indirect detection signatures for the origin of asymmetric dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2014) 017.
  44. B. Feldstein and A. L. Fitzpatrick, Discovering asymmetric dark matter with anti-neutrinos, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2010) 005.
  45. H. Fukuda, S. Matsumoto, and S. Mukhopadhyay, Asymmetric dark matter in early Universe chemical equilibrium always leads to an antineutrino signal, Phys. Rev. D 92, 013008 (2015).
  46. R. Abbasi et al. (IceCube Collaboration), The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data, Phys. Rev. D 104, 022002 (2021).
  47. R. Abbasi et al. (IceCube Collaboration), Improved characterization of the astrophysical muon–neutrino flux with 9.5 years of IceCube data, Astrophys. J. 928, 50 (2022).
  48. S. D. Thomas, Baryons and dark matter from the late decay of a supersymmetric condensate, Phys. Lett. B 356, 256 (1995).
  49. R. Kitano and I. Low, Dark matter from baryon asymmetry, Phys. Rev. D 71, 023510 (2005).
  50. J. Unwin, Exodus: Hidden origin of dark matter and baryons, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2013) 090.
  51. P. Asadi, E. D. Kramer, E. Kuflik, G. W. Ridgway, T. R. Slatyer, and J. Smirnov, Accidentally asymmetric dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 211101 (2021).
  52. N. Hiroshima, R. Kitano, K. Kohri, and K. Murase, High-energy neutrinos from multibody decaying dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 97, 023006 (2018).
  53. P. F. de Salas, K. Malhan, K. Freese, K. Hattori, and M. Valluri, On the estimation of the local dark matter density using the rotation curve of the Milky Way, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2019) 037.
  54. N. Song, S. W. Li, C. A. Argüelles, M. Bustamante, and A. C. Vincent, The future of high-energy astrophysical neutrino flavor measurements, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2021) 054.
  55. I. Esteban, M. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, M. Maltoni, T. Schwetz, and A. Zhou, The fate of hints: Updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2020) 178.
  56. NuFIT 5.3 (2024), http://www.nu-fit.org/?q=node/278 (2021).
  57. N. Aghanim et al. (Planck Collaboration), Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters, Astron. Astrophys. 641, A6 (2020); 652, C4(E) (2021).
  58. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/rctg-fdrt for details on dark matter decay, sensitivity projection, and the limits including HESE and EHE data.
  59. C. W. Bauer, N. L. Rodd, and B. R. Webber, Dark matter spectra from the electroweak to the Planck scale, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2021) 121.
  60. T. Sjostrand, S. Mrenna, and P. Z. Skands, pythia 6.4 physics and manual, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2006) 026.
  61. T. Sjostrand, S. Mrenna, and P. Z. Skands, A brief introduction to pythia 8.1, Comput. Phys. Commun. 178, 852 (2008).
  62. T. Sjöstrand, S. Ask, J. R. Christiansen, R. Corke, N. Desai, P. Ilten, S. Mrenna, S. Prestel, C. O. Rasmussen, and P. Z. Skands, An introduction to pythia 8.2, Comput. Phys. Commun. 191, 159 (2015).
  63. M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration), IceCube-Gen2: The window to the extreme Universe, J. Phys. G 48, 060501 (2021).
  64. M. G. Aartsen et al. (IceCube Collaboration), Differential limit on the extremely-high-energy cosmic neutrino flux in the presence of astrophysical background from nine years of IceCube data, Phys. Rev. D 98, 062003 (2018).
  65. W. D. Apel et al. (KASCADE Grande Collaboration), KASCADE-grande limits on the isotropic diffuse gamma-ray flux between 100 TeV and 1 EeV, Astrophys. J. 848, 1 (2017).
  66. Z. Cao et al. (LHAASO Collaboration), Constraints on heavy decaying dark matter from 570 days of LHAASO observations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 261103 (2022).
  67. J. M. Cline, S. Gao, F. Guo, Z. Lin, S. Liu, M. Puel, P. Todd, and T. Xiao, Blazar constraints on neutrino-dark matter scattering, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 091402 (2023).
  68. F. Ferrer, G. Herrera, and A. Ibarra, New constraints on the dark matter-neutrino and dark matter-photon scattering cross sections from TXS 0506+056, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2023) 057.
  69. M. Escudero, O. Mena, A. C. Vincent, R. J. Wilkinson, and C. Bœhm, Exploring dark matter microphysics with galaxy surveys, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2015) 034.
  70. W. Crumrine, E. O. Nadler, R. An, and V. Gluscevic, Dark matter coupled to radiation: Limits from the Milky Way satellites, Phys. Rev. D 111, 023530 (2025).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 111, L111701– Published 5 June, 2025
  • Received 3 July 2024
  • Revised 12 December 2024
  • Accepted 15 May 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation