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Qinrui Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Qinrui Liu.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

$χ$aro$ν$: a tool for neutrino flux generation from WIMPs

Indirect searches for signatures of corpuscular dark matter have been performed using all cosmic messengers: gamma rays, cosmic rays, and neutrinos. The search for dark matter from neutrinos is of particular importance since they are the only courier that can reach detectors from dark matter processes in dense environments, such as the core of the Sun or Earth, or from the edge of the observable Universe. In this work, we introduce $χ$aro$ν$, a software package that, in the spirit of its mythological Greek namesake $χ\acuteαρων$, bridges the dark sector and Standard Model by predicting neutrino fluxes from different celestial dark matter agglomerations. The flux at the point of production is either computed internally by $χ$aro$ν$ or is taken from user supplied tables. $χ$aro$ν$ then propagates this flux through vacuum or dense media and returns the expected neutrino yield at an observer's location. In developing $χ$aro$ν$, we have revisited and updated the production of neutrinos in dense media, updated the propagation of high-energy neutrinos, and studied the sources of uncertainty in neutrino transport. This package is coupled to a new calculation that includes electroweak corrections resulting in the most up-to-date and complete repository of neutrino fluxes from dark matter decay and annihilation over the energy range of 1 GeV to 10 PeV coming from the Earth, the Sun, and the Galactic halo.

hep-ph↗

Hunting the Glashow Resonance with PeV Neutrino Telescopes

The Glashow resonant scattering, $i.e$. ${\overlineν^{}_{e} + e^{-} \rightarrow W^{-} \rightarrow \text{anything}}$, offers us a possibility of disentangling $\overlineν^{}_{e}$ from the total astrophysical neutrino fluxes. Meanwhile, a great number of high-energy neutrino telescopes, with various detection mechanisms, are advancing towards a better understanding of one of the most energetic frontiers of the Universe. In this work, we investigate a connection between through-going muons at IceCube and the Glashow resonance signal through the channel $W^{-} \rightarrow μ$. We find that for IceCube, muons from $\overlineν^{}_{e}$ can induce a $\sim20\%$ excess of PeV events around the horizontal direction. However, the current statistic of IceCube is not enough to observe such an excess. We also address the novel possibility of $\overlineν^{}_{e}$ detection via $W^{-} \rightarrow τ$ at telescopes aiming to detect Earth-skimming and mountain-penetrating neutrinos. The subsequent hadronic decay of a tau will induce an extensive air shower which can be detected by telescopes with Cherenkov or fluorescence techniques. Similar to IceCube, it is challenging to observe the Glashow resonance excess from the Earth-skimming neutrinos. Nevertheless, we find it is promising to observe Glashow resonance events with a mountain as the target.

hep-ph↗

Search for Dark Matter Annihilation to Neutrinos from the Sun

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) can be gravitationally captured by the Sun and trapped in its core. The annihilation of those WIMPs into Standard Model particles produces a spectrum of neutrinos whose energy distribution is related to the dark matter mass. In this work, we present the theoretical framework for relating an observed neutrino flux to the WIMP-nucleon cross section and summarize a previous solar WIMP search carried out by IceCube. We then outline an ongoing updated solar WIMP search, focusing on improvements over the previous search.

astro-ph.HE↗

Searching for High-Energy Neutrino Emission from TeV Pulsar Wind Nebulae

Pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are main gamma-ray emitters in the Galactic plane. Although the leptonic scenario is able to explain most PWNe emission well, a hadronic contribution cannot be excluded. High-energy emission raises the possibility that gamma-rays are hadronically produced which inevitably leads to the production of neutrinos. We report a stacking analysis to search for neutrino emission from 35 PWNe that are very-high-energy gamma-ray emitters and the results using 9.5 years of all-sky IceCube data. In the absence of any significant correlation, we set upper limits on the total neutrino emission from those PWNe and constraints on the hadronic component.

astro-ph.HE↗