Related papers: Scattering meets absorption in dark matter detecti…
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 majority of the matter in the universe is still unidentified and under investigation by both direct and indirect means. Many experiments searching for the recoil of dark-matter particles off target nuclei in underground laboratories…
We consider the indirect detection of dark matter that is captured in the Sun and subsequently annihilates to long-lived dark mediators. If these mediators escape the Sun before decaying, they can produce striking gamma ray signals, either…
It is well-known that stars have the potential to be excellent dark matter detectors. Infalling dark matter that scatters within stars could lead to a range of observational signatures, including stellar heating, black hole formation, and…
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…
Self-interacting dark matter has been proposed as a solution to the small-scale structure problems, such as the observed flat cores in dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. If scattering takes place through light mediators, the…
We study the solar capture rate of inelastic dark matter with endothermic and/or exothermic interactions. By assuming that an inelastic dark matter signal will be observed in next generation direct detection experiments we can set a lower…
We consider models where a massive spin-two resonance acts as the mediator between Dark Matter (DM) and the SM particles through the energy-momentum tensor. We examine the effective theory for fermion, vector and scalar DM generated in…
Self-interacting dark matter offers an interesting alternative to collisionless dark matter because of its ability to preserve the large-scale success of the cold dark matter model, while seemingly solving its challenges on small scales. We…
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…
Dark matter self-interactions have important implications for the distributions of dark matter in the Universe, from dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters. We present benchmark models that illustrate characteristic features of dark matter that…
Semiconductors are by now well-established targets for direct detection of MeV to GeV dark matter via scattering off electrons. We show that semiconductor targets can also detect significantly lighter dark matter via an absorption process.…
Freeze-in dark matter (DM) mediated by a light ($\ll$ keV) weakly-coupled dark-photon is an important benchmark for the emerging low-mass direct detection program. Since this is one of the only predictive, detectable freeze-in models, we…
We consider the absorption by bound electrons of dark matter in the form of dark photons and axion-like particles, as well as of dark photons from the Sun, in current and next-generation direct detection experiments. Experiments sensitive…
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…
Dark matter (DM) direct detection experiments are entering the multiple-ton era and will be sensitive to the coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) of solar neutrinos, enabling the possibility to explore contributions from…
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…
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.…
Direct detection experiments for light (sub-GeV) dark matter are making enormous leaps in reaching previously unexplored theory space. The need for accurate characterizations of target responses has led to a growing interplay between…
Dark matter direct detection experiments are designed to look for the scattering of dark matter particles that are assumed to move with virial velocities $\sim 10^{-3}$. At these velocities, the energy deposition in the detector is large…