English

Constraints on Sub-MeV Dark Matter from Solar Reflection with DAMIC-M

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2026-07-10 v1

Abstract

The Sun acts as a natural dark matter accelerator. Galactic halo particles scattering in the solar plasma emerge with velocities well beyond the Galactic escape speed, providing a boosted flux that extends the kinematic reach of direct detection experiments into the sub-MeV mass regime. We present constraints on solar-reflected dark matter (SRDM) from the DAMIC-M prototype detector using \sim1.3~kg-day of data acquired with silicon skipper charge coupled devices (CCDs) at the Modane Underground Laboratory. Exploiting the spatial diffusion signature of low-energy electron recoils, we derive 90% C.L. upper limits on the DM-electron scattering cross section for both heavy- and ultralight-mediator benchmarks, reaching σˉe3.161037cm2\bar{\sigma}_e\sim 3.16 \cdot 10^{-37} \rm{cm^2} at 0.10.1 MeV. For the ultralight mediator, our limits are competitive with the world-leading constraints, achieved with an integrated exposure of 1.3\sim1.3~kg-day. These results probe the parameter space between stellar-cooling bounds and terrestrial limits from standard halo searches, a region inaccessible to direct detection experiments relying solely on the standard halo flux.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.09352,
  title  = {Constraints on Sub-MeV Dark Matter from Solar Reflection with DAMIC-M},
  author = {K. Aggarwal and I. Arnquist and N. Avalos and X. Bertou and N. Castello-Mor and C. Centeno-Lorca and A. E. Chavarria and A. R. Chriss and J. Cuevas-Zepeda and A. Dastgheibi-Fard and C. De Dominicis and O. Deligny and J. Duarte-Campderros and E. Estrada and R. Gaıor and E. -L. Gkougkousis and T. Hossbach and L. Iddir and B. J. Kavanagh and B. Kilminster and I. Lawson and A. Letessier-Selvon and H. Lin and P. Loaiza and A. Lopez-Virto and R. Lou and H. Lumengo-Kidimbu and S. Munagavalasa and J. Noonan and D. Norcini and S. Paul and P. Perez-Cobo and P. Privitera and P. Robmann and B. Roach and D. Rosenmerkel and M. Settimo and R. Smida and M. Traina and R. Vilar and R. Yajur and D. Venegas-Vargas and C. Zhu and Y. Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.09352},
  year   = {2026}
}