Direct Detection of Multi-component Secluded WIMPs
Abstract
Dark matter candidates comprising several sub-states separated by a small mass gap, and coupled to the Standard Model by (sub-)GeV force carriers, can exhibit non-trivial scattering interactions in direct detection experiments. We analyze the secluded U(1)-mediated WIMP scenario, and calculate the elastic and inelastic cross sections for multi-component WIMP scattering off nuclei. We find that second-order elastic scattering, mediated by virtual excited states, provides strong sensitivity to the parameters of the model for a wide range of mass splittings, while for small splittings the WIMP excited states have lifetimes exceeding the age of the universe, and generically have a fractional relative abundance above 0.1%. This generates even stronger constraints for mass splittings less than 200 keV due to exothermic de-excitation events in detectors.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0903.3396,
title = {Direct Detection of Multi-component Secluded WIMPs},
author = {Brian Batell and Maxim Pospelov and Adam Ritz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.3396},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
23 pages, 6 figures