Search for dark matter annihilation in the earth using the ANTARES neutrino telescope

A search for a neutrino signal from WIMP pair annihilations in the centre of the Earth has been performed with the data collected with the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria have been developed and tuned to maximise the sensitivity of the experiment to such a neutrino signal. No significant excess of neutrinos over the expected background has been observed. Upper limits at 90% C.L. on the WIMP annihilation rate in the Earth and the spin independent scattering cross-section of WIMPs to nucleons σpSI were calculated for WIMP pair annihilations into either τ+τ−, W+W−, bb¯ or the non-SUSY νμν̄μ as a function of the WIMP mass (between 25GeV∕c2 and 1000GeV∕c2) and as a function of the thermally averaged annihilation cross section times velocity 〈σAv〉Earth of the WIMPs in the centre of the Earth. For masses of the WIMP close to the mass of iron nuclei (50GeV∕c2), the obtained limits on σpSI are more stringent than those obtained by other indirect searches.