Searching for Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilations in the Galactic Stellar Disk.pdf

A Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 9 April 2008 (MN L T X style file v1.4) E Searching for Neutrinos from WIMP Annihilations in the Galactic Stellar Disk Zacharia Myers and Adi Nusser 8 0 Physics Department, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel and the Asher Space Research Institute 0 2 r p 9 April 2008 A 9 ABSTRACT ] h Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a viable candidate for the relic p abundance of dark matter (DM) produced in the early universe. So far WIMPs have - o eluded direct detection through interactions with baryonic matter. Neutrino emission r from accumulated WIMP annihilations in the solar core has been proposed as a signa- t s ture of DM, but has not yet been detected. These null results may be due to small scale a DM density fluctuations in the halo with the density of our local region being lower [ 3 than the average (∼ 0.3 GeV/cm ). However, the accumulated neutrino signal from WIMP annihilations in the Galactic stellar disk would be insensitive to local density 2 v variations. Inside the disk, dark matter can be captured by stars causing an enhanced 4 annihilation rate and therefore a potentially higher neutrino flux than what would