Constraints on metastable superheavy dark matter coupled to sterile neutrinos with the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION; J. M. FIGUEIRA

PHYSICAL REVIEW D

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2024 vol. 109

1550-7998

Physical Review D 109, L081101 (2024) /// Dark matter particles could be superheavy, provided their lifetime is much longer than the age of the Universe. Using the sensitivity of the Pierre Auger Observatory to ultrahigh energy neutrinos and photons, we constrain a specific extension of the Standard Model of particle physics that meets the lifetime requirement for a superheavy particle by coupling it to a sector of ultralight sterile neutrinos. Our results show that, for a typical dark coupling constant of 0.1, the mixing angle θm between active and sterile neutrinos must satisfy, roughly, θm ≲ 1.5 × 10^(−6) × (Msol/(10^9 GeV))^(−2) for a mass Msol of the dark-matter particle between 10^8 GeV and 10^11 GeV.