English

Stellar cooling, inelastic dark matter, and XENON

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-03-18 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

We consider a novel scenario of dark photon-mediated inelastic dark matter to explain the white dwarf cooling excess suggested by its luminosity function, and the excess in electron recoil events at XENON1T. In the Sun, the dark photon AA' is produced mainly via thermal processes, and the heavier dark matter χ2\chi_2 is produced by the scattering of halo dark matter χ1\chi_1 with electrons. The XENON1T signal arises primarily by solar AA' scattering, and AA' emission by white dwarfs accommodates the extra cooling while maintaining consistency with other stellar cooling observations. A tritium component in the XENON1T detector is also required. We show for parameters that explain the XENON1T data, but not the white dwarf cooling anomaly, that a second signal peak may be buried in the XENON1T data and revealable at XENONnT. However, the parameters that give the double peak in the spectrum are incompatible with constraints from horizontal branch stars.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.04444,
  title  = {Stellar cooling, inelastic dark matter, and XENON},
  author = {Wai-Yee Keung and Danny Marfatia and Po-Yan Tseng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.04444},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

14 pages, 7 figures. Version to appear in JHEAp

R2 v1 2026-06-23T18:25:26.686Z