Related papers: Can sub-GeV dark matter coherently scatter on the …
Dark matter (DM) particles with mass in the sub-GeV range are an attractive alternative to heavier weakly-interacting massive particles, but direct detection of such light particles is challenging. If however DM-nucleus scattering leads to…
One of the next frontiers in dark-matter direct-detection experiments is to explore the MeV to GeV mass regime. Such light dark matter does not carry enough kinetic energy to produce an observable nuclear recoil, but it can scatter off…
The electron ionization predicted by the Migdal effect in dark matter-nucleus scattering enhances experimental sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter. In this work, we demonstrate that lower-energy electron excitations provide a novel and…
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…
The scattering of sub-GeV dark matter in direct detection experiments happens at characteristic wavelengths comparable or larger than the interparticle spacing. Collective effects in the target material must therefore be accounted for when…
Low-threshold dark matter detectors, in particular cryogenic detectors based on dielectric materials, are among the best tools for probing sub-GeV dark matter masses. In the coming years detectors of this type will become sensitive to solar…
Sub-GeV mass dark matter particles whose collisions with nuclei would not deposit sufficient energy to be detected, could instead be revealed through their interaction with electrons. Analyses of data from direct detection experiments…
Scattering of sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles with hydrogen atoms is studied in this paper. The interactions of DM with electrons and nucleons are both included and formulated in a general framework based on nonrelativistic effective…
A number of direct detection experiments are searching for electron excitations created by scattering of sub-GeV dark matter. We present an alternate formulation of dark matter-electron scattering in terms of the dielectric response of a…
We consider direct-detection searches for sub-GeV dark matter via electron scatterings in the presence of large interactions between dark and ordinary matter. Scatterings both on electrons and nuclei in the Earth's crust, atmosphere, and…
Detection of electron recoils by dark matter (DM) may reveal the structure of the dark sector. We consider a scenario where a heavier DM particle inelastically scatters off an electron and is converted into a lighter DM particle. A small…
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…
The scattering of dark matter (DM) particles with sub-GeV masses off nuclei is difficult to detect using liquid xenon-based DM search instruments because the energy transfer during nuclear recoils is smaller than the typical detector…
Proposed dark matter detectors with eV-scale sensitivities will detect a large background of atomic (nuclear) recoils from coherent photon scattering. This background climbs steeply below $\sim10$~eVnr, far exceeding the declining rate of…
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…
While most scintillation-based dark matter experiments search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), a sub-GeV WIMP-like particle may also be detectable in these experiments. While dark matter of this type and scale would not…
The direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter particles is hampered by their low energy deposits. If the maximum deposit allowed by kinematics falls below the energy threshold of a direct detection experiment, it is unable to detect these…
Directional detection of Dark Matter particles (DM) in the MeV mass range could be accomplished by studying electron recoils in large arrays of parallel carbon nanotubes. In a scattering process with a lattice electron, a DM particle might…
We present new observational constraints on the elastic scattering of dark matter with electrons for dark matter masses between 10 keV and 1 TeV. We consider scenarios in which the momentum-transfer cross section has a power-law dependence…
Dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range is a theoretically motivated but largely unexplored paradigm. Such light masses are out of reach for conventional nuclear recoil direct detection experiments, but may be detected through the small…