Karlsruhe 2011 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 93: Neutrinoastronomie II

T 93.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 17:45–18:00, 30.41: 105

Search for Neutrinos from Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Halo with IceCube — •Martin Bissok, David Boersma, Sebastian Euler, Jan-Patrick Huelss, Isabel Oldengott, Peter Romanczyk, Marius Wallraff, and Christopher Wiebusch — III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, D-52056 Aachen

There is substantial evidence for the existence of a non-baryonic, cold dark matter component in the universe. The super-symmetric extension to the Standard Model gives rise to a natural candidate particle, the neutralino. These weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) can annihilate and produce all kinds of Standard Model particles, including neutrinos. The density of dark matter in the halo increases strongly towards the Galactic Center, which makes it an interesting source for indirect detection. In this study we search for an increased flux of neutrinos from the direction of the Galactic Center with the IceCube neutrino observatory. The Galactic Center is located in the southern hemisphere and the challenge of such a search is the overwhelming background of downward moving atmospheric muons. This study attempts to identify neutrino events by selecting muon tracks which start inside the detector volume. A dedicated algorithm has been developed to select these events at the South Pole for transmission via satellite. This algorithm operates since May 2010 with IceCube in its 79-string configuration, including six strings of the low energy extension DeepCore. We present the data selection and initial results from the further analysis.