Upper Limits on Low-Mass WIMP Annihilation Cross Sections from IceCube Neutrinos

Dark matter is known to be approximately five times more abundant in the universe than baryonic matter. However, its particle nature remains a mystery. One of the leading candidate particles for dark matter are Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which are thought to interact only via gravity and the weak force. Some theories suggest that WIMPs could potentially annihilate into Standard Model particles in astrophysical environments. Among a variety of annihilation outcomes is the production of neutrino/antineutrino pairs, either through direct annihilation or indirectly through decay chains, which can be detected by neutrino telescopes like the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. One promising location for dark matter annihilation are dwarf spheroidal galaxies, which have a higher dark matter density and lower astrophysical background relative to a full-sized galaxy. This study presents preliminary results for constraints on the WIMP annihilation cross section for low-mass (≤ 300 GeV) WIMPs in 29 dwarf galaxies using IceCube data from 2011 to 2017.