Monoenergetic Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilation in Jupiter George M. Frenchand Marc Shery High Energy Theory Group Department of Physics

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Monoenergetic Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilation in Jupiter

George M. French∗and Marc Sher†

High Energy Theory Group, Department of Physics,

William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA

(Dated: December 14, 2022)

Abstract

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) can be captured by the Sun and annihilate in

the core, which may result in production of kaons that can decay at rest into monoenergetic 236

MeV neutrinos. Several studies of detection of these neutrinos at DUNE have been carried out.

It has been shown that if the WIMP mass is below 4 GeV, then they will evaporate prior to

annihilation, suppressing the signal. Since Jupiter has a cooler core, WIMPs with masses in the

1-4 GeV range will not evaporate and can thus annihilate into kaons which decay at rest into

monoenergetic neutrinos. We calculate the ﬂux of these neutrinos near the surface of Jupiter and

ﬁnd that it is comparable to the ﬂux of neutrinos from the Sun at DUNE for masses above 4

GeV and substantially greater in the 1-4 GeV range. Of course, detecting these neutrinos would

require a neutrino detector near Jupiter. Obviously, it will be many decades before such a detector

can be built, but should direct detection experiments ﬁnd a WIMP with a mass in the 1-4 GeV

range, it may be one of the few ways to learn about the annihilation process. A liquid hydrogen

time projection chamber might be able to get precise directional information and energy of these

neutrinos (and hydrogen is plentiful in the vicinity of Jupiter). We speculate that such a detector

could be placed on the far side of one of the tidally locked Amalthean moons; the moon itself would

provide substantial background shielding and the surface would allow easier deployment of solar

panels for power generation.

∗gmfrench@email.wm.edu

†mtsher@wm.edu

arXiv:2210.04761v2 [hep-ph] 13 Dec 2022

I. INTRODUCTION

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are one of the main candidates for dark

matter. The primary detection strategies for detection of WIMPs are production at colliders,

direct detection in underground experiments and indirect detection from WIMP annihilation.

The eﬃcacy of each of these strategies is very dependent on the mass and interactions of

the WIMPs, and thus all three must be deployed. It has been noted [1–8] that WIMPs can

be gravitationally captured by the Sun, resulting in a much higher WIMP density in the

Sun, leading to annihilation into neutrinos (most other annihilation products will not be

detectable outside the Sun). Searches for high energy neutrinos from WIMP annihilation

in the Sun have been carried out [9–11]. It was later pointed out [12,13] that in models in

which the WIMPs annihilate into light quarks (or heavy quarks which then decay into light

quarks) there will be a large number of low-energy (sub-GeV) neutrinos produced. These

papers focused on decays of muons and pions. However, in a series of papers by Rott, In,

Kumar and Yaylali (RIKY) [14–16], it was argued that the pions and kaons would come

to rest before decaying and thus would decay into monoenergetic neutrinos. Pions yield 32

MeV neutrinos and kaons yield (64% of the time) 236 MeV neutrinos. RIKY noted that

WIMPs with masses below 3-4 GeV would evaporate, but that masses in the 4 −10 GeV

range would cover a region of parameter-space which could be detected at DUNE and would

not be excluded by direct detection experiments. A ﬂux of 236 MeV neutrinos coming from

the Sun would be a smoking gun for dark matter annihilation. Recently, DUNE [17] has

analyzed this possibility and shown that spin-dependent cross-sections as low as 10−38cm2

can be reached.

Detection of a monoenergetic ﬂux of neutrinos from the Sun would certainly tell us a great

deal about WIMP dark matter, but unless one also had direct detection or collider evidence,

there would remain many unanswered questions. Are there other celestial bodies that could

provide information about dark matter annihilation? WIMP capture in the Earth would be

very rare, since Earth has a much smaller size and a much smaller escape velocity. In early

papers, Kawasaki et al. [18] and Adler [19] discussed strongly interacting dark matter as

source for heating of gas giant planets, Leane et al. [20] looked at the possibility that dark

matter could be focused by celestial bodies, increasing the rate of annihilation and Leane

and Linden [21] studied gamma ray emission from dark matter annihilation in Jupiter. Very

recently, Li and Fan [22] discussed WIMP capture in Jupiter. They also pointed out that

Jupiter is a particularly promising celestial object because it is the largest gas giant and its

core is relatively cool, reducing the evaporation rate. As a result, WIMPs with masses below

the 4 GeV evaporation limit from the Sun could collect in the core. Li and Fan studied the

possibility that the WIMPs could annihilate into long-lived dark mediators which would

convert to electrons and positrons after leaving Jupiter. Current data from the Galileo and

Juno orbiters gave interesting constraints on dark matter models.

These works all considered WIMPs that eventually decay into charged particles. Could

one detect a monoenergetic ﬂux of neutrinos from Jupiter? Obviously, there is no current

detector in orbit that could detect neutrinos, nor is there likely to be for many decades.

But such a detector could encounter a huge ﬂux of neutrinos. The inverse square law alone

would give an enhancement of the square of 1 A.U./RJupiter, which is a factor of ﬁve million

relative to DUNE. This could far exceed the reduction due to the smaller size (relative to the

Sun) of Jupiter and the smaller escape velocity. Hopefully by the end of this century robust

exploration of the Jovian system will be underway and the idea of orbiting a neutrino detector

will not be unthinkable. Obviously if dark matter is detected and annihilation into light

quarks is possible, then this type of detector could be helpful. Even if the annihilation into

light quarks is detected at an earlier stage, such a detector could give us direct information

about the Jovian interior. Thus, we feel that it is valuable to study the question of WIMP

annihilation into kaons in Jupiter and the detection of the neutrinos, acknowledging that

such a detection would be decades away.

II. WIMP ANNIHILATION IN JUPITER

A. WIMP population

As WIMPs from the DM halo pass through Jupiter, a portion of them scatter oﬀ of

atomic nuclei and enter into bound orbits. While some scatter back out after additional

collisions, the rest remain bound and thermalize in the planet’s core where they annihilate

into Standard Model particles [14,23]. The rate at which the total population of WIMPs

changes with time inside of Jupiter is governed by the diﬀerential equation

dNχ(t)

dt =C − ENχ(t)− AN2

χ(t) (2.1)

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MonoenergeticNeutrinosfromWIMPAnnihilationinJupiterGeorgeM.FrenchandMarcSheryHighEnergyTheoryGroup,DepartmentofPhysics,William&Mary,Williamsburg,VA23187-8795,USA(Dated:December14,2022)AbstractWeaklyinteractingmassiveparticles(WIMPs)canbecapturedbytheSunandannihilateinthecore,whichmayresultinproduct...

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Monoenergetic Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilation in Jupiter George M. Frenchand Marc Shery High Energy Theory Group Department of Physics

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