The Solar Disk at High Energies
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Miguel Gutiérrez; Manuel Masip; Sergio Muñoz
- Source
- Subject
- High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
FOS: Physical sciences
Astronomy and Astrophysics
High Energy Physics::Experiment
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- Language
- English
High energy cosmic rays illuminate the Sun and produce an image that could be observed in up to five different channels: a cosmic-ray shadow (whose energy dependence has been studied by HAWC); a gamma-ray flux (observed at E 200 GeV by Fermi-LAT); a muon shadow (detected by ANTARES and IceCube); a neutron flux (undetected, as there are no hadronic calorimeters in space); a flux of high energy neutrinos. Since these signals are correlated, the ones already observed can be used to reduce the uncertainty in the still undetected ones. Here we define a simple setup that uses the Fermi-LAT and HAWC observations to imply very definite fluxes of neutrons and neutrinos from the solar disk. In particular, we provide a fit of the neutrino flux at 10 GeV–10 TeV that includes its dependence on the zenith angle and on the period of the solar cycle. This flux represents a neutrino floor in indirect dark matter searches. We show that in some benchmark models the current bounds on the dark matter–nucleon cross section push the solar signal below this neutrino floor.
Spanish Government
Junta de Andalucia PID2019-107844GB-C21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 FQM 101 P18-FR-5057