Speaker
Description
Next-generation neutrino telescopes have emerged as a powerful tool for constraining dark matter properties in the high-energy regime, which remains largely unexplored. We forecast the sensitivity of the TRIDENT neutrino telescope to dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Centre over the mass range from $10^3$ to $10^5$ GeV, showing that TRIDENT will probe annihilation rates down to $\langle\sigma v\rangle\approx5\times10^{-27}\,{\rm cm}^3\,{\rm s}^{-1}$ for a $10\,{\rm TeV}$ dark matter. The analysis is carried out with all-flavour neutrino interactions, showing that cascade-like events, primarily induced by $\nu_{e,\tau}$, provide a promising channel for dark matter searches compared to the more commonly studied track events. We also highlight the impact of a previously overlooked background, Galactic neutrinos produced from interactions between hadronic cosmic rays and interstellar gas, which can affect the interpretation of a potential signal, especially at high energies.
