Probing P- and CP-violation in dark matter interactions
Abstract
Discrete symmetries played a central role in elucidating the structure of the weak interactions, and they will probably be equally crucial regarding the interactions of the dark matter (DM) particle -- whose nature remains elusive. In this work we show that signals in future direct detection experiments can be used to test, in a model-independent way, for P- and CP-violation in DM-nucleus interactions. The analysis is performed within the most general effective theory for non-relativistic spin-0 DM-nucleus interactions mediated by the exchange of a heavy particle. Assuming an idealised xenon detector, we calculate the expected number of DM signal events required to reject P and CP invariant DM-nucleus interactions. For a DM mass of 30 GeV (or higher), this number lies between about 10 and 300 DM signal events, depending on how P and CP invariance are modeled. Future direct detection experiments, therefore, have the potential to reveal P- and CP-violation in DM interactions, making a decisive step toward the identification of the DM particle.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.01262,
title = {Probing P- and CP-violation in dark matter interactions},
author = {Riccardo Catena and Joakim Hagel and Carlos E. Yaguna},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.01262},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
16 pages, 5 figures