Related papers: Earth-Scattering Induced Modulation in Low-Thresho…
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…
Dark matter particles with sufficiently large interactions with ordinary matter can scatter in the Earth's atmosphere and crust before reaching an underground detector. This Earth-shielding effect can induce a directional dependence in the…
Direct detection experiments search for the interactions of Dark Matter (DM) particles with nuclei in terrestrial detectors. But if these interactions are sufficiently strong, DM particles may scatter in the Earth, affecting their…
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 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…
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…
Conventional dark matter direct detection experiments set stringent constraints on dark matter by looking for elastic scattering events between dark matter particles and nuclei in underground detectors. However these constraints weaken…
Strongly-interacting dark matter can be accumulated in large quantities inside the Earth, and for dark matter particles in a few GeV mass range, it can exist in large quantities near the Earth's surface. We investigate the constraints…
While Dark Matter (DM) is typically assumed to interact only very weakly with the particles of the Standard Model, many direct detection experiments are currently exploring regions of parameter space where DM can have a large scattering…
If DM-matter scatterings are assumed to occur in a detector's target material, collisions will naturally take place inside the bulk of planets and stars as well. For large cross sections, these scatterings might occur in the Earth or Sun…
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…
The Earth-stopping effect plays a crucial role in the direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter. Besides the elastic scattering process, the quasi-elastic and deep inelastic scatterings between dark matter and nucleus that are usually…
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…
Direct detection experiments have started to explore dark matter scattering off electrons and nucleons through light mediators. Mediators with sub-keV masses are efficiently produced in the Sun and can be absorbed in the same detectors that…
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…
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…
Inelastic dark matter with moderate splittings, $\mathcal{O}({\rm few} \; {\rm to} \; 150)$ keV, can upscatter to an excited state in the Earth, with the excited state subsequently decaying, leaving a distinctive monoenergetic photon signal…
Boosted dark particles of astrophysical origin can lead to nonstandard nuclear or electron recoil signals in direct detection experiments. %It has been shown that this interpretation successfully explains the excess of keV electron recoil…
If dark matter interacts too strongly with nuclei, it could be slowed to undetectable speeds in Earth's crust or atmosphere before ever reaching a detector. For sub-GeV dark matter, analytic approximations appropriate for heavier dark…