GeV Scale Inelastic Dark Matter with Dark Photon Mediator via Direct Detection and Cosmological/Laboratory Constraints
Hong-Jian He, Yu-Chen Wang, Jiaming Zheng
备注：
14pp, PRDpublished version. Results and Conclusions unchanged, only minor refinements. The importance of Migdal bound on inelastic DM is stressed. References added
We propose a new candidate of GeV scale inelastic dark matter (DM). Our construction has an anomaly-free $U(1)_X^{}$ gauge group with dark photon mediator, and can realize either scalar or fermionic inelastic DM. It is highly predictive and testable. We study the scattering rate of light inelastic DM with electrons in the XENON1T experiment and with nuclei in the XENON1T, CRESST-III, CDEX-1B and DarkSide-50 experiments. We resolve the recent XENON1T anomaly via electron recoil detection. Combining the XENON1T constraints from both electron recoils and nuclear recoils (including Migdal effect), we predict the inelastic DM mass $\lesssim 1.5$GeV. We further analyze the bounds by the DM relic abundance, the lifetime of the heavier DM component, and laboratory constraints, from which we identify the viable parameter space for the future probe. This provides an important benchmark for the theories and experimental tests of GeV scale inelastic DM.
We consider an inelastic dark matter model, where a fermion is charged under a broken U(1) gauge symmetry, and introduce a tiny Majorana mass term to split the fermion into two states with the light one being a dark matter candidate. If the gauge boson is light, it can mediate both elastic and inelastic dark matter self-interactions in dark halos, leading to observational consequences. Using a numerical technique based on partial wave analysis, we accurately calculate the elastic and inelastic self-scattering cross sections. We assume a thermal freeze-out scenario and fix the gauge coupling co…
We examine the phenomenology of a simplified model of fermionic dark matter coupled to a light scalar mediator carrying lepton number 2. We find that the mediator can be very light and still consistent with laboratory and cosmological bounds. This model satisfies the thermal relic condition for natural values of dimensionless coupling constants and admits a mediator in the $10 - 100 ~\text{MeV}$ mass range favored by small scale structure observations. As such, this model provides an excellent candidate for self-interacting dark matter.
Direct detection experiments relying on nuclear recoil signatures lose sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter for typical galactic velocities. This sensitivity is recovered if there exists another source of flux with higher momenta. Such an energetic flux of light dark matter could originate from the decay of mesons produced in inelastic cosmic ray collisions. We compute this novel production mechanism---a cosmic beam dump experiment---and estimate the resulting limits from XENON1T and LZ. We find that the dark matter flux from inelastic cosmic rays colliding with atmospheric nuclei can dominate o…
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 scattering cross section relevant to solve these problems may fall into the non-perturbative regime leading to a non-trivial velocity dependence, which allows compatibility with limits stemming from cluster-size objects. However, these models are strongly constrained by different observations, in particular from the requirements that the decay of the light mediator…
We present a treatment of the high energy scattering of dark Dirac fermions from nuclei, mediated by the exchange of a light vector boson. The dark fermions are produced by proton-nucleus interactions in a fixed target and, after traversing shielding that screens out strongly interacting products, appear similarly to neutrino neutral current scattering in a detector. Using the Fermilab experiment E613 as an example, we place limits on a secluded dark matter scenario. Visible scattering in the detector includes both the familiar regime of large momentum transfer to the nucleus ($Q^2$) described…
Multi-level dark matter with diagonal and off-diagonal interactions shows a rich phenomenology in its self-scattering. If the interactions are mediated by a particle that is less massive than the dark matter, Sommerfeld effect can lead to resonant enhancement of the scattering. For mediators lighter than the level separation, dark matter particles can upscatter to excited states and de-excite by emitting these mediators. We compute these cross-sections, both above and below the kinematic threshold, in a generic two-component dark matter model and identify the large inelastic cross-section as a…
We search for nuclear recoil signals of dark matter models with a light mediator in PandaX-II, a direct detection experiment in China Jinping underground Laboratory. Using data collected in 2016 and 2017 runs, corresponding to a total exposure of 54 ton day, we set upper limits on the zero-momentum dark matter-nucleon cross section. These limits have a strong dependence on the mediator mass when it is comparable to or below the typical momentum transfer. We apply our results to constrain self-interacting dark matter models with a light mediator mixing with standard model particles, and set str…
We study the sensitivity of the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) experiments, MicroBooNE, ICARUS, and SBND, to MeV- to GeV-scale inelastic dark matter interacting through a dark photon mediator. These models provide interesting scenarios of light thermal dark matter, which, while challenging to probe with direct and indirect detection experiments, are amenable to accelerator-based searches. We consider production of the dark sector states with both the Fermilab Booster 8 GeV and NuMI 120 GeV proton beams and study the signatures of scattering and decay of the heavy excited dark state in …
We propose a novel dark matter (DM) detection strategy for the models with non-minimal dark sector. The main ingredients in the underlying DM scenario are a boosted DM particle and a heavier dark sector state. The relativistic DM impinged on target material scatters off inelastically to the heavier state which subsequently decays into DM along with lighter states including visible (Standard Model) particles. The expected signal event, therefore, accompanies a visible signature by the secondary cascade process associated with a recoiling of the target particle, differing from the typical neutri…
Measuring dark matter (DM) signals via electron recoil provides an important means for direct detection of light DM particles. The recent XENON1T anomaly with electron recoil energy around $\,E_R^{}\!=\!(2-3)$keV can be naturally explained by DM inelastic scattering which injects energy to the recoiled electrons and gives a narrow peak structure in the recoil spectrum. We present an effective field theory (EFT) approach to exothermic inelastic DM signals for the Xenon electron recoil detection. For relatively heavy mediator, we fairly formulate the DM-lepton interactions by effective contact o…
We perform a constrained spectral fit analysis of the excess observed in the electron recoil energy spectrum by XENON1T with neutrino magnetic moment, charge radius, neutrino millicharge and new light vector and scalar mediators. Within the limits allowed by other laboratory experiments we find that the excess can be explained in the range$\ (2-4)\times 10^{-11}μ_{B} $ for the magnetic moment,$\ (2-6)\times 10^{-31}$cm$^{2}$ for the charge radius, $\ (1.7-2.3)\times 10^{-12}e$ for the millicharge and $(10-100)\ $keV masses of light mediators with couplings of $ 3.5\times 10^{-7}$ for vector/ax…
Hadrophilic inelastic freeze-in dark matter in $q_1-q_2$ gauge extension and the high energy LZ event
State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute & School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（暗物质物理全国重点实验室，李政道研究所与物理天文学院，上海交通大学）；Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (MOE) & Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute & School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（粒子天体物理教育部重点实验室与上海粒子物理与宇宙学重点实验室，李政道研究所与物理天文学院，上海交通大学）
Visible signals from the decays of light long-lived hidden sector particles have been extensively searched for at beam dump, fixed-target, and collider experiments. If such hidden sectors couple to the Standard Model through mediators heavier than $\sim 10$ GeV, their production at low-energy accelerators is kinematically suppressed, leaving open significant pockets of viable parameter space. We investigate this scenario in models of inelastic dark matter, which give rise to visible signals at various existing and proposed LHC experiments, such as ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA…
We consider inelastic dark matter scenarios with dark photon mediator and a dark Higgs boson. The dark Higgs boson spontaneously breaks the gauge symmetry associated with the dark photon, and gives the mass to the dark photon and the mass difference to dark particles. Such a dark Higgs boson can decay into the dark particles and hence can be another source of the dark particles at collider experiments. We analyze the sensitivity to decays of the excited state into the dark matter and charged particles at the FASER 2 experiment in fermion and scalar inelastic dark matter scenarios. We consider …
We consider a dark sector containing a pair of almost degenerate states coupled to the Standard Model through a dark photon mediator. This set-up constitutes a simple realization of the inelastic dark matter scenario. The heaviest dark state is long-lived, in the limit of a small kinetic mixing among the dark photon and the Standard Model hypercharge gauge boson, and/or of a small mass splitting among the dark states. We study the prospects for detection of this scenario at proposed LHC experiments dedicated to search for long-lived particles, namely FASER, MATHUSLA, CODEX-b, AL3X, MAPP, ANUBI…
The low-threshold experiment SENSEI, which uses the ultralow-noise silicon Skipper-CCD to explore light dark matter from the halo, has achieved the most rigorous limitations on light DM-electron scattering cross section. In this work, we investigate the inelastic DM-electron scattering process with the SENSEI data and derive the constraints on the inelastic dark matter model with a $U(1)$ gauge boson as the mediator. Comparing with elastic scattering process, we find that the down-scattering process with the mass splitting $δ\equiv m_{χ_2}-m_{χ_1}<0$ is more strongly constrained while the up-s…
Recently the XENON1T collaboration has released new results on searches for new physics in low-energy electronic recoils. The data shows an excess over background in the low-energy tail, particularly pronounced at about $2-3$ keV. With an exposure of $0.65$ tonne-year, large detection efficiency and energy resolution, the detector is sensitive as well to solar neutrino backgrounds, with the most prominent contribution given by $pp$ neutrinos. We investigate whether such signal can be explained in terms of new neutrino interactions with leptons mediated by a light vector particle. We find that …
The null signal from collider and dark matter (DM) direct detector experiments makes the interaction between DM and visible matter too small to reproduce the correct relic density for many thermal DM models. The remaining parameter space indicates that two almost degenerated states in the dark sector, the inelastic DM scenario, can co-annihilate in the early universe to produce the correct relic density. Regarding the direct detection of the inelastic DM scenario, the virialized DM component from the nearby halo is nonrelativistic and not able to excite the DM ground state, even if the relevan…
It has recently been demonstrated that a program of parasitic electron-beam fixed-target experiments would have powerful discovery potential for dark matter and other new weakly-coupled particles in the MeV-GeV mass range. The first stage of this program can be realized at Jefferson Laboratory using an existing plastic-scintillator detector downstream of the Hall D electron beam dump. This paper studies the physics potential of such an experiment and highlights its unique sensitivity to inelastic "exciting" dark matter and leptophilic dark matter scenarios. The first of these is kinematically …
Inelastic Scattering Effects on Attenuation of Boosted Dark Matter
Nanjing Normal University（南京师范大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院）；Henan Normal University（河南师范大学）
Light dark sectors in thermal contact with the Standard Model naturally produce the observed relic dark matter abundance and are the targets of a broad experimental search program. A key light dark sector model is the pseudo-Dirac fermion with a dark photon mediator. The dynamics of the fermionic excited states are often neglected. We consider scenarios in which a nontrivial abundance of excited states is produced and their subsequent de-excitation yields interesting electromagnetic signals in direct detection experiments. We study three mechanisms of populating the excited state: a primordial…
We take into account a generic form of a Dirac fermionic dark matter (DM), which communicates with the Standard Model quarks via a scalar mediator, in a model-independent way. Four special interaction scenarios are investigated, where one is parity conserving and the other three are parity violating. Three of them result in the $v$ suppressed DM-nucleon cross sections, where $v \sim 10^{-3} c$ is the velocity of the DM in the laboratory frame. We constrain the masses of the dark matter and mediator as well as the couplings from the thermal relic abundance, and the recent results of the XENON10…
Impostor Among $ν$s: Dark Radiation Masquerading as Self-Interacting Neutrinos
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics（萨哈核物理研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立学院）；Washington University（华盛顿大学）；Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz（美因茨约翰内斯古腾堡大学）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）
Inelastic Self-interacting Dark Matter and LUX-ZEPLIN 248 keV Event in a Dirac Modular Inverse Seesaw
Salbari College（萨尔巴里学院）；University of Silesia（西里西亚大学）；Indian Institute of Technology Goa（印度理工学院果阿分校）；Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad（印度理工学院海德拉巴分校）
We revisit the possibility of light scalar dark matter, in the MeV to GeV mass bracket and coupled to electrons through fermion or vector mediators, in light of significant experimental and observational advances that probe new physics below the GeV-scale. We establish new limits from electron colliders and fixed-target beams, and derive the strength of loop-induced processes that are probed by precision physics, among other laboratory probes. In addition, we compute the cooling bound from SN1987A, consider self-scattering, structure formation, and cosmological constraints as well as the limit…
We analyze the sensitivity of searches for dark matter in the jets and missing energy channel in the case where the particle mediating interactions between hadronic matter and DM is collider accessible. We consider all tree level UV completions of interactions between fermion DM and quarks which contribute to direct detection, and derive bounds which apply to elastic or inelastic scattering dark matter explanations of direct detection signals. We find that studies based on effective operators give robust bounds when the mediator is heavy enough to resonantly produce the final state in question…
Leptophilic dark matter in $U(1)_{L_{i}-L_{j}}$ models: a solution to the Fermi-LAT Galactic Center Excess consistent with cosmological and laboratory observations
keV scale sterile neutrinos are excellent warm dark matter candidates. In the early Universe, these can be produced from oscillations and scatterings of active neutrinos. However, in the absence of any new physics, this mechanism is in severe tension with observations from X-ray searches. In this work, we show that secret self-interactions of active neutrinos, mediated by a scalar, can efficiently produce these sterile neutrinos without being ruled out by X-ray observations. These neutrino self-interactions are also testable: for a mediator mass greater than a few MeV, these self-interactions …
We present the complete next-to-leading order calculation of isolated prompt photon production in association with a jet in deep-inelastic scattering. The calculation involves, direct, resolved and fragmentation contributions. It is shown that defining the transverse momenta in the proton virtual-photon frame (CM*), as usually done, or in the laboratory frame (LAB), as done in some experiments, is not equivalent and leads to important differences concerning the perturbative approach. In fact, using the latter frame may preclude, under certain conditions, the calculation of the next-to-leading …
Neutrino scattering on electrons is considered as a tool for laboratory searches of the neutrino magnetic moment. We study inelastic $\barν_ee^-$-scattering on electrons bound in the germanium (Z=32) and iodine (Z=53) atoms for antineutrinos generated in a nuclear reactor core and also in the $^{90}$Sr-$^{90}$Y and $^{147}$Pm artificial sources. Using the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Dirac model, we calculate both the magnetic and weak scattering cross sections for the recoil electron energy range of 1 to 100 keV where a higher sensitivity to the neutrino magnetic moment could be achieved. Partic…
Constraints on a Light Leptophilic Scalar from Dark-Sector Couplings
Physics Department and INFN Sezione di Roma, Università di Roma La Sapienza（罗马第一大学物理系及意大利国家核物理研究所罗马分部）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati（意大利国家核物理研究所弗拉斯卡蒂国家实验室）；LAPTh, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc et CNRS（萨瓦蒙布朗大学与法国国家科学研究中心拉普特实验室）
We use 7 years of electron and positron Fermi-LAT data to search for a possible excess in the direction of the Sun in the energy range from 42 GeV to 2 TeV. In the absence of a positive signal we derive flux upper limits which we use to constrain two different dark matter (DM) models producing $e^+ e^-$ fluxes from the Sun. In the first case we consider DM model being captured by the Sun due to elastic scattering and annihilation into $e^+ e^-$ pairs via a long-lived light mediator that can escape the Sun. In the second case we consider instead a model where DM density is enhanced around the S…
Neutrino and dark matter experiments with large-volume ($\gtrsim 1$ ton) detectors can provide excellent sensitivity to signals induced by energetic light dark matter coming from the present universe. Taking boosted dark matter as a concrete example of energetic light dark matter, we scrutinize two representative search channels, electron scattering and proton scattering including deep inelastic scattering processes, in the context of elastic and inelastic boosted dark matter, in a completely detector-independent manner. In this work, a dark gauge boson is adopted as the particle to mediate th…
ALP-mediated inelastic dark matter and the LUX-ZEPLIN high-recoil candidate event LZ230616
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；The Chinese University of Hong Kong（香港中文大学）
Mass-Dependent Dark Matter Deficit from Inelastic Scattering
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）
