Related papers: Metastable Nuclear Isomers as Dark Matter Accelera…
Weak-scale dark matter particles, in collisions with nuclei, can mediate transitions between different nuclear energy levels. In particular, owing to sizeable momentum exchange, dark matter particles can enable de-excitation of nuclear…
There is compelling cosmological and astrophysical evidence of dark matter comprising 27% of the energy budget of the Universe. However, dark matter has never been observed in direct detection experiments. The long-time favorite model of…
Inelastic dark matter (IDM) models feature an energy threshold for scattering with Standard Model particles, which enables their consistency with the increasingly stringent limits placed by direct detection experiments. In a typical…
Direct detection experiments aim at the detection of dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by searching for signals from elastic dark matter nucleus scattering. Additionally, inelastic scattering in which…
In the paper expressions are obtained for the event rates expected in experiments aimed at direct detection of dark matter (DM) particles. These expressions allow one to estimate the rates taking into account simultaneously elastic…
Dark matter can scatter and excite a nucleus to a low-lying excitation in a direct detection experiment. This signature is distinct from the canonical elastic scattering signal because the inelastic signal also contains the energy deposited…
Sub-GeV dark matter particles evade standard direct detection studies since their typical energies in the galactic halo do not allow for detectable recoil of the heavy nuclei in the detectors. However, it was noted that if the dark matter…
Neutrinos with energy of order 10~MeV, such as from pion decay-at-rest sources, are an invaluable tool for studying low-energy neutrino interactions with nuclei -- previously enabling the first measurement of coherent elastic…
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…
There exist well motivated models of particle dark matter which predominantly scatter inelastically off nuclei in direct detection experiments. This inelastic transition causes the DM to up-scatter in terrestrial experiments into an excited…
We consider the potential benefits of searching for supersymmetric dark-matter through its inelastic excitation, via the "scalar current", of low-lying collective nuclear states in a detector. If such states live long enough so that the…
Isomer depletion via the process of nuclear excitation by inelastic electron scattering is investigated theoretically. A comprehensive study on low-energy nuclear excitations by inelastic electron scattering is performed to analyze the…
If the cosmic dark matter consists of weakly-interacting massive particles, these particles should be produced in reactions at the next generation of high-energy accelerators. Measurements at these accelerators can then be used to determine…
The paper presents a novel approach to the description of the nonrelativistic weak interaction of a massive neutral particle (lepton) and a nucleus, in which the latter retains its integrity. The cross section of such a process is a sum of…
Inelastic dark matter, in which WIMP-nucleus scatterings occur through a transition to an excited WIMP state ~ 100 keV above the ground state, provides a compelling explanation of the DAMA annual modulation signal. We demonstrate that the…
Due to the dense environment, neutron stars (NSs) can serve as an ideal laboratory for studying the interactions between dark matter (DM) and ordinary matter. In the process of DM capture, deep inelastic scattering may dominate over elastic…
The LHC may produce light, weakly-interacting particles that decay to dark matter, creating an intense and highly collimated beam of dark matter particles in the far-forward direction. We investigate the prospects for detecting this dark…
Direct dark matter detection focuses on elastic scattering of dark matter particles off nuclei. In this study, we explore inelastic scattering where the nucleus is excited to a low-lying state of 10-100 keV, with subsequent prompt…
For a class of macroscopic dark matter models, inelastic scattering of dark matter off a nucleus can generate electromagnetic signatures with GeV-scale energy. The IceCube detector, with its kilometer-scale size, is ideal for directly…
If dark matter interacts with nuclei or electrons, then elastic collisions with constituents of stars will cause some of the galactic dark matter to fall below the escape velocity and become gravitationally bound. For asymmetric dark matter…