English

Atmospheric absorption of dark matter

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2025-09-03 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Typically, the interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter is assumed to be very small. Nevertheless, in this article, I show that the effective resonant absorption of dark photon dark matter in the atmosphere is definitely possible. This might also be associated with the alleged temperature anomalies observed in our upper stratosphere. By allowing a small amount of additional energy deposition to our upper stratosphere, a narrow dark matter mass range mA0.00010.001m_A \sim 0.0001-0.001 eV and the corresponding range of the mixing parameter ε\varepsilon are constrained for the first time. This proposal might overturn our usual assumption of extremely weak interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter and revive the hope of detecting dark matter directly. Some important implications of this proposal such as the heating of planets and supermassive dark stars would also be discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.00324,
  title  = {Atmospheric absorption of dark matter},
  author = {Man Ho Chan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.00324},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted for Publication in ApJ