Possible origin of the KM3-230213A neutrino event from dark matter decay
Debasish Borah (Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039, India, Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Center, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA); Nayan Das (Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039, India); Nobuchika Okada (Department of Physics, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA); Prantik Sarmah (Institute of High Energy PhysicsChinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China)
We study the possibility of the highest energy neutrino event with 220 PeV energy, detected recently by the KM3NeT experiment to be originating from heavy dark matter (DM) decay. Considering a heavy right handed neutrino (RHN) DM for illustrative purposes, we show that DM mass of 440 PeV, can explain the observed flux. The required DM lifetime to produce the best-fit value of the neutrino flux saturates the existing gamma-ray bounds. Due to the large uncertainty in the flux, it is possible to explain the KM3NeT event from RHN DM decay at confidence level (CL) while being in agreement with gamma-ray bounds and nonobservation of similar events at IceCube. While we consider a gauged scenario where DM relic can be generated due to other interactions, we also briefly discuss some alternate DM possibilities where the gamma-ray bounds can be alleviated compared to the minimal RHN DM discussed here.
