Searching for sub-MeV boosted dark matter from xenon electron direct detection *

2020/06/23 by Qing-Hong Cao, Ran Ding, Qian-Fei Xiang · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Detector #Electron #Electron capture #Light dark matter #Nuclear physics #Optics #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics #Physics #Recoil #Scalar field dark matter #Sensitivity (control systems) #WIMP #Xenon #astro-ph.HE #hep-ex #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abe195

5 pages with supplements

arxiv created 2020/06/23 · openalex created_date 2020/06/25 · openalex publication_date 2021/02/01 · arxiv updated 2021/05/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Abstract Direct detection experiments tend to lose sensitivity in searches for sub-MeV light dark matter candidates due to the threshold of recoil energy. However, such light dark matter particles could be accelerated by energetic cosmic rays, such that they could be detected with existing detectors. We derive constraints on the scattering of a boosted light dark matter particle and electron from the XENON100/1T experiment. We illustrate that the energy dependence of the cross section plays a crucial role in improving both the detection sensitivity and also the complementarity of direct detection and other experiments.

Citations

• Nuclear recoil energy scale in liquid xenon with application to the direct detection of dark matter
• DAMA/LIBRA data and leptonically interacting dark matter
• Towards closing the window on strongly interacting dark matter: Far-reaching constraints from Earth’s heat flow
• Electron and Positron Fluxes in Primary Cosmic Rays Measured with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station
• Direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter
• XENON1T dark matter data analysis: Signal and background models and statistical inference
• Light Dark Matter Search with Ionization Signals in XENON1T

Cited by

• Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE
• Implications of the XENON1T excess on the dark matter interpretation