Related papers: Reverse Direct Detection: Cosmic Ray Scattering Wi…
The non-detection of GeV-scale WIMPs has led to increased interest in more general candidates, including sub-GeV dark matter. Direct detection experiments, despite their high sensitivity to WIMPs, are largely blind to sub-GeV dark matter.…
Dark matter is poorly constrained by direct detection experiments at masses below 1 MeV. This is an important target for the next generation of experiments, and several methods have been proposed to probe this mass range. One class of such…
Dark matter with MeV scale mass is difficult to detect with standard direct search detectors. However, they can be searched for by considering the up-scattering of kinetic energies by cosmic rays. Because the dark matter density is higher…
Recent results from direct detection experiments (Dama, CoGeNT), though subject to debate, seem to point toward a low mass (few GeV) dark matter (DM) particle. However, low mass DM candidates are not easily achieved in the MSSM nor NMSSM.…
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…
It has been long discussed that cosmic rays may contain signals of dark matter. In the last couple of years an anomaly of cosmic-ray positrons has drawn a lot of attentions, and recently an excess in cosmic-ray anti-proton has been reported…
Dark matter detectors built primarily to probe elastic scattering of WIMPs on nuclei are also precise probes of light, weakly coupled particles that may be absorbed by the detector material. In this paper, we derive constraints on the…
Light non-relativistic components of the galactic dark matter halo elude direct detection constraints because they lack the kinetic energy to create an observable recoil. However, cosmic-rays can upscatter dark matter to significant…
A bevy of light dark matter direct detection experiments have been proposed, targeting spin-independent dark matter scattering. In order to be exhaustive, non-standard signatures that have been investigated in the WIMP window including…
All attempts to directly detect particle dark matter (DM) scattering on nuclei suffer from the partial or total loss of sensitivity for DM masses in the GeV range or below. We derive novel constraints from the inevitable existence of a…
The detectability of light dark matter in direct detection experiments is limited by the small kinetic energy of the recoiling targets. Thus, scenarios where dark matter is boosted to relativistic velocities provide a useful tactic to…
The irreducible upscattering of cold dark matter by cosmic rays opens up the intriguing possibility of detecting even light dark matter in conventional direct detection experiments or underground neutrino detectors. The mechanism also…
GeV-scale dark matter particles with strong coupling to baryons evade the standard direct detection limits as they are efficiently stopped in the overburden and, consequently, are not able to reach the underground detectors. On the other…
We study the direct detection prospects for a representative set of simplified models of sub-GeV dark matter (DM), accounting for existing terrestrial, astrophysical and cosmological constraints. We focus on dark matter lighter than an MeV,…
The dark-matter candidates of particle physics invariably possess electromagnetic interactions, if only via quantum fluctuations. Taken en masse, dark matter can thus engender an index of refraction which deviates from its vacuum value. Its…
We calculate the scattering rate of sub-GeV dark matter in solid-state targets for spin-dependent dark matter -- nucleon interactions. For dark matter particles with mass below 100 MeV, the scattering occurs predominantly through incoherent…
Current multi-ton detectors put stringent constraints on the GeV-scale galactic dark matter, pushing the allowed cross-section almost towards the neutrino fog, yet remain mostly insensitive to the light dark matter. Cosmic rays can…
Sub-MeV cold dark-matter particles are unable to produce electronic recoil in conventional dark-matter direct detection experiments such as XENONnT and LUX-ZEPLIN above the detector threshold. The mechanism of boosted dark matter comes into…
Traditional direct searches for dark matter, looking for nuclear recoils in deep underground detectors, are challenged by an almost complete loss of sensitivity for light dark matter particles. Consequently, there is a significant effort in…
Light Dark Matter (DM), defined here as having a mass between 1 MeV and about 1 GeV, is an interesting possibility both theoretically and phenomenologically, at one of the frontiers of current progress in the field of DM searches. Its…