Searches for a dark matter emitted neutrino signal

Dark matter (DM) is five times more abundant than ordinary matter in the Universe, but what it is made of remains obscure. The main question which is still open is : what is the nature of DM as particles ?

In 2013 the IceCube experiment (gathering together scientists from 12 countries including one team from ULB) reported the first observation ever of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. This discovery opens an all new Universe observational era, the « neutrino telescope » era. This could allow to observe neutrinos emitted by the DM particles, providing essential pieces of information on it.

In this project, researchers from ULB’s Theoretical Physics research unit and IceCube’s members of the IIHE will join to establish and perform a wide program of searches on this subject. IceCube experimentalists will work on data taking and analysis, whereas the theorists will bring for this analysis their long standing experience on DM search and model building, together with expertise on similar searches based on the observation of gamma rays.

Spokesperson

Thomas Hambye
Theoretical Physics research unit
Faculty of Sciences

Dates
Created on August 31, 2018