Related papers: Modulation Effects in Dark Matter-Electron Scatter…
Dark Matter (DM) particles with sufficiently large cross sections may scatter as they travel through Earth's bulk. The corresponding changes in the DM flux give rise to a characteristic daily modulation signal in detectors sensitive to…
The elastic scattering of an atomic nucleus plays a central role in dark matter direct detection experiments. In those experiments, it is usually assumed that the atomic electrons around the nucleus of the target material immediately follow…
A key strategy for the direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter is to search for small ionization signals. These can arise from dark matter-electron scattering or when the dark matter-nucleus scattering process is accompanied by a "Migdal"…
Direct detection experiments and the interpretation of their results are sensitive to the velocity structure of the dark matter in our galactic halo. In this work, we extend the formalism that deals with such astrophysics-driven…
For many years annually modulating $\sim$ keV scintillations have been observed in the DAMA/NaI and DAMA/Libra experiments. A dark matter - electron scattering interpretation is now favoured given the stringent constraints on nuclear recoil…
We study in detail sub-GeV dark matter scattering off electrons in xenon, including the expected electron recoil spectra and annual modulation spectra. We derive improved constraints using low-energy XENON10 and XENON100 ionization-only…
Sub-GeV dark matter (DM) which interacts with electrons can excite electrons occupying molecular orbitals in a scattering event. In particular, aromatic compounds such as benzene or xylene have an electronic excitation energy of a few eV,…
The time-dependent modulation of the event rate in dark matter direct detection experiments, arising from the motion of the Earth with respect to the Galactic rest frame, is a distinctive signature whose observation is crucial for claiming…
We show that the rate for dark matter-electron scattering in an arbitrary material is determined by an experimentally measurable quantity, the complex dielectric function, for any dark matter interaction that couples to electron density.…
The annually modulating $\sim$ keV scintillations observed in the DAMA/NaI and DAMA/Libra experiments might be due to dark matter - electron scattering. Such an explanation is now favoured given the stringent constraints on nuclear recoil…
We consider current observational constraints on the electromagnetic charge of dark matter. The velocity dependence of the scattering cross-section through the photon gives rise to qualitatively different constraints than standard dark…
Astronomical and cosmological observations indicate that dark matter should interact very weakly with the electromagnetic radiation. Nevertheless, the existence of such interactions is not precluded by observations nor by theoretical…
Light (sub-GeV) dark matter has gained increasing interest in terms of direct detection. Accelerated dark matter is a promising candidate that can generate detectable nuclear recoil energy within the sub-GeV range. Because of the large…
We investigate the scattering of solar neutrinos on electrons and nuclei in dark matter direct detection experiments. The rates of these processes are small in the Standard Model, but can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude if the…
If dark matter has mass lower than around 1 GeV, it will not impart enough energy to cause detectable nuclear recoils in many direct-detection experiments. However, if dark matter is upscattered to high energy by collisions with cosmic…
The scattering of light dark matter off thermal electrons inside the Sun produces a "fast" sub-component of the dark matter flux that may be detectable in underground experiments. We update and extend previous work by analyzing the…
A novel detection of sub-GeV dark matter is proposed in the paper. The electron cloud is boosted by the dark matter and emits an electron when it is dragged back by the heavy nucleus, namely the coherent scattering of the electron cloud of…
The primary observable in dark matter direct detection is the spectrum of scattering events. We simulate multiple positive direct detection signals (on germanium, xenon, and argon targets) to explore the extent to which the underlying…
Halo dark matter (DM) particles could lose energy due to the scattering off nuclei within the Earth before reaching the underground detectors of DM direct detection experiments. This Earth shielding effect can result in diurnal modulation…
The dark matter scattering with atomic bound electrons is a crucial avenue for exploring the sub-GeV mass range. If not handled properly, even negative values can arise in the scattering matrix element squared or equivalently the…