Search for Dark Matter Signatures with ANTARES and KM3NeT

Abstract

Extraterrestrial messengers can be used as trackers to probe the presence of dark matter particles in our
Galaxy. Sizable fluxes of high-energy neutrinos, measurable with neutrino telescopes, are expected from
pair annihilation and decay of dark matter in regions where it accumulates to a high density. This is the
case for massive celestial bodies such as the Sun and the very large dark matter reservoir at the Galactic
Center, which are inside the field of view of neutrino telescopes installed in the Mediterranean Sea.
ANTARES was operated for 16 years and was recently decommissioned, and KM3NeT is currently taking
its first data with its first detection lines. A search for signatures of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles
(WIMPs) has been performed in 14 years of all-flavor neutrino data, yielding competitive upper limits on
the strength of WIMP annihilation when targeting the Galactic Center. Limits on the WIMP-nucleon cross
section have been set considering the nonobservation of dark-matter-induced neutrinos from the direction
of the Sun. Other non-WIMP landscapes, such as the model predicting heavy dark matter candidates, have
been tested with dedicated searches in ANTARES data. The current results with the first installed KM3NeT
subdetectors are also discussed.