Extending the Dark Matter Reach of Water Cherenkov Detectors using Jupiter

Abstract

We propose the first method for water Cherenkov detectors to constrain GeV-scale dark matter (DM) below the solar evaporation mass. While previous efforts have highlighted the Sun and Earth as DM capture targets, we demonstrate that Jupiter is a viable target. Jupiter's unique characteristics, such as its lower core temperature and significant gravitational potential, allow it to capture and retain light DM more effectively than the Sun, particularly in the mass range below 4 GeV where direct detection sensitivity diminishes. Our calculations provide the first sensitivity estimates to GeV-scale annihilating DM within Jupiter, predicting Hyper-K can reach spin dependent cross sections as low as $σ_{pχ}^{\mathrm{SD}}=2\times 10^{-35}\mathrm{cm}^2$ for DM masses below 2 GeV. This surpasses current solar limits and direct detection results. We additionally provide estimates for Super-K ORCA, and the IceCube-Upgrade, showing that these experiments could provide complimentary bounds to direct detection experiments.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: Sketch of the sensitivities we predicted here ($\nu\bar{\nu})$ compared to solar bounds. Super-K $\tau\tau$-bounds Super-Kamiokande:2015xms, Hyper-K $\nu\bar{\nu}$-estimate Bell:2021esh. Evaporation mass for the Sun taken from ref. Busoni:2013kaa. Using Jupiter, we reach energy regions inaccessible to solar searches.
• Figure 2: Spin dependent DM capture rate (magenta) for a DM-proton elastic scattering cross section $\sigma_{p\chi}^\text{SD}=10^{-35}{\rm \,cm}^2$. We also show results obtained with other estimations in the literature French:2022ccbLeane:2023woh for comparison.
• Figure 3: Comparison of the atmospheric muon neutrino flux at Kamioka Honda:2011nf (orange) and the expected flux from DM annihilation (magenta). The dashed blue line shows the expected flux after directional cuts.
• Figure 4: The 95% sensitivities calculated here for Super-K, Hyper-K, ORCA and the IceCube Upgrade. We show the current direct detection constraints by NEWS-G NEWS-G:2024jms, CRESST-III CRESST:2022dtl, PICASSO Behnke:2016lsk and PICO-60 Amole:2019fdf shaded in yellow. The gray region and the region within the right arrow show where evaporation becomes relevant in Jupiter and in the Sun, respectively.
• Figure 5: Illustration of the calculation of the evaporation mass. The exact computation of the annihilation rate is shown in blue, and the corresponding approximation when evaporation is negligible is depicted in orange. The evaporation mass for different values of $\sigma_{p\chi}^\text{SD}$ is shown in magenta.