The Sun can potentially serve as an enormous WIMP
detector. WIMPs streaming through the galactic
halo would be gravitationally focused into the
Sun, where they would be captured through
collisions with atoms in the Sun's center [49].
Neutralinos are their
own anti-particles; thus, the neutralinos
in the Sun would annihilate each other.
When neutralinos annihilate, they will produce
high energy neutrinos that are potentially
detectable in terrestrial experiments [59].
These few GeV neutrinos are
much more energetic than the MeV solar
neutrinos produced through solar nucleosynthesis.
There is also the possibility of detecting
WIMPs in the halo through their annihilation
into protons and anti-protons, into electrons
and positrons and into 's. The predicted rates for
these processes are unfortunately rather low [21].
There have been several experiments that
have looked for WIMP annihilations in the Sun.
Currently, there are limits from the
Kamionkande, Frejus, and MACRO experiments.
In the coming years, we can look forward to
more sensitive searches by the
DUMAND, AMANDA and NESTOR experiments.
While these searches are worthwhile,
Kamionkowski et al. [38] have argued that direct
experimental searches may be a more effective
technique than searches for neutrinos from
annihilations of SUSY relics in the Sun. However, for
the rarer models with predominantly spin interactions,
the converse is most likely true
They conclude that for most of parameter space,
1 kg of direct detector is equivalent to 10 -10
m
of indirect
detector.