How blind are underground and surface detectors to strongly interacting dark matter?

2018/02/28 by Timón Emken, Timon Emken, Chris Kouvaris · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Computational physics #Cosmology #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Detector #Geometry #Light dark matter #Optics #Parameter space #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Scalar field dark matter #Scattering #Weakly interacting massive particles #astro-ph.CO #hep-ex #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.115047

published as Phys. Rev. D 97, 115047 (2018) · 13 pages, 7 figures, v2: matches published version

openalex publication_date 2018/06/29 · arxiv created 2018/07/18 · arxiv updated 2018/07/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Above a critical dark matter-nucleus scattering cross section any terrestrial direct detection experiment loses sensitivity to dark matter, since the Earth crust, atmosphere, and potential shielding layers start to block off the dark matter particles. This critical cross section is commonly determined by describing the average energy loss of the dark matter particles analytically. However, this treatment overestimates the stopping power of the Earth crust. Therefore the obtained bounds should be considered as conservative. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to determine the precise value of the critical cross section for various direct detection experiments and compare them to other dark matter constraints in the low mass regime. In this region we find parameter space where typical underground and surface detectors are completely blind to dark matter. This ``hole'' in the parameter space can hardly be closed with an increase in the detector exposure. Dedicated surface or high-altitude experiments may be the only way to directly probe this part of the parameter space.

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Cited by

• Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE
• Neutrino experiments probe hadrophilic light dark matter
• Dark matter interpretation of excesses in multiple direct detection experiments