2017

Search for Solar Atmospheric Neutrinos and Dark Matter Captured in the Sun

by Prof. Carsten Rott (Sungkyunkwan University)

Pacific/Honolulu
112 (WAT)

112

WAT

Description
The Sun is a promising target for neutrino telescopes such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Dark matter could be captured by the Sun and self-annihilate to produce neutrinos. Some of the most stringent constraints on dark matter scattering on protons, which initiates the capture in the Sun, have been derived based on the absence of such a high-energy neutrino flux. Solar dark matter searches will ultimately be limited by a "neutrino floor" due to high-energy neutrinos from cosmic-ray interactions with the solar atmosphere. The neutrino floor by itself is an exciting signal and its discovery will help probe the complicated effects of solar magnetic fields on cosmic rays. The talk will present the latest results from experimental searches for dark matter and solar atmospheric neutrino search and discuss prospects for their detection at current and next generation detectors.