Dark matter particles near the center of a blazar, after being accelerated by the elastic collisions with relativistic electrons and protons in the blazar jet, can be energetic enough to trigger detectable signals at terrestrial detectors. In this work, focusing on the blazars TXS 0506+056 and BL Lacertae, we derive novel limits on the cross section of the elastic scattering between dark matter and electrons by means of the available Super-Kamiokande data. Thanks to the large blazar-boosted dark matter flux, the limit on the dark matter-electron scattering cross section for dark matter masses below 100 MeV can be as low as $\sim10^{-38}~\text{cm}^2$, which is orders of magnitude stronger than the analogous results from galactic cosmic rays.
We explore the possibility that relativistic protons in the extremely powerful jets of blazars may boost via elastic collisions the dark matter particles in the surroundings of the source to high energies. We concentrate on two sample blazars, TXS 0506+056 - towards which IceCube recently reported evidence for a high-energy neutrino flux - and BL Lacertae, a representative nearby blazar. We find that the dark matter flux at Earth induced by these sources may be sizable, larger than the flux associated with the analogous process of dark matter boosted by galactic cosmic rays, and relevant to ac…
Setting limits on blazar-boosted dark matter with xenon-based detectors
University of Zurich（苏黎世大学）；The University of Sydney（悉尼大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；New York University Abu Dhabi（阿布扎比纽约大学）；University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学）；University of California（加利福尼亚大学）
We report a search for astronomical neutrinos in the energy region from several GeV to TeV in the direction of the blazar TXS0506+056 using the Super-Kamiokande detector following the detection of a 100 TeV neutrino from the same location by the IceCube collaboration. Using Super-Kamiokande neutrino data across several data samples observed from April 1996 to February 2018 we have searched for both a total excess above known backgrounds across the entire period as well as localized excesses on smaller time scales in that interval. No significant excess nor significant variation in the observed…
Dark matter can be boosted by various mechanisms, which may produce characteristic signals that are different from those of canonical dark matter. We show that the semi-annihilation $χχ\to\barχν$ produces signals that are distinctive from those of other semi-annihilation and standard dark matter annihilation processes. Because the boosted dark matter produced by the semi-annihilation process is regarded as a high-energy neutrino, the total flux of the dark matter and the accompanying neutrino produce double peaks in the energy close to the dark matter mass. We show that it will be possible to …
If dark matter self-annihilates into neutrinos or a second component of ("boosted") dark matter that is nucleophilic, the annihilation products may be detected with high rates via coherent nuclear scattering. A future multi-ten-tonne liquid xenon detector such as DARWIN, and a multi-hundred-tonne liquid argon detector, ARGO, would be sensitive to the flux of these particles in complementary ranges of $10-1000$ MeV dark matter masses. We derive these sensitivities after accounting for atmospheric and diffuse supernova neutrino backgrounds, and realistic nuclear recoil acceptances. We find that …
We consider the production of a "fast flux" of hypothetical millicharged particles (mCPs) in the interstellar medium (ISM). We consider two possible sources induced by cosmic rays: (a) $pp\rightarrow$(meson)$\rightarrow$(mCP) which adds to atmospheric production of mCPs, and (b) cosmic-ray up-scattering on a millicharged component of dark matter. We notice that the galactic magnetic fields retain mCPs for a long time, leading to an enhancement of the fast flux by many orders of magnitude. In both scenarios, we calculate the expected signal for direct dark matter detection aimed at electron rec…
Dark Matter Heating of Compact Stars Beyond Capture: A Relativistic Framework for Energy Deposition by Particle Beams
National Centre for Nuclear Research（国家核研究中心）；Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学李政道研究所）；Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz（美因茨约翰内斯古腾堡大学）；Dual CP Institute of High Energy Physics（双CP高能物理研究所）
