Search for dark matter from the Galactic halo with the IceCube neutrino telescope

Abstract

Self-annihilating or decaying dark matter in the Galactic halo might produce high energy neutrinos detectable with neutrino telescopes. We have conducted a search for such a signal using 276 days of data from the IceCube 22-string configuration detector acquired during 2007 and 2008. The effect of halo model choice in the extracted limit is reduced by performing a search that considers the outer halo region and not the Galactic Center. We constrain any large-scale neutrino anisotropy and are able to set a limit on the dark matter self-annihilation cross section of <δAv>-~10−22 cm3 s−1 for weakly interacting massive particle masses above 1 TeV, assuming a monochromatic neutrino line spectrum.