Highly-boosted dark matter and cutoff for cosmic-ray neutrinos through neutrino portal

The dark matter interpretation for a recent observation of excessive electron recoil events at the XENON1T detector seems challenging because its velocity is not large enough to give rise to recoiling electrons of $$ \mathcal{O}\left(\mathrm{keV}\right) $$ O keV . Fast-moving or boosted dark matter scenarios are receiving attention as a remedy for this issue, rendering the dark matter interpretation a possibility to explain the anomaly. We investigate various scenarios where such dark matter of spin 0 and 1/2 interacts with electrons via an exchange of vector, axial-vector, pseudo-scalar, or scalar mediators. We find parameter values not only to reproduce the excess but to be consistent with existing bounds. Our study suggests that the scales of mass and coupling parameters preferred by the excess can be mostly affected by the type of mediator, and that significantly boosted dark matter can explain the excess depending on the mediator type and its mass choice. The method proposed in this work is general, and hence readily applicable to the interpretation of observed data in the dark matter direct detection experiment.

Section: Dark Matter Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of the XENON1T excess on the dark matter interpretation

Alhazmi

Kim

Kong

et al. 2021

“…Cosmic rays in the Milky Way could also boost DM particles to high (or even very high) energies [47][48][49]. As already commented in ref.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Sun heated MeV-scale dark matter and the XENON1T electron recoil excess

Chen

Cui

Shu

et al. 2021

The XENON1T collaboration reported an excess of the low-energy electron recoil events between 1 and 7 keV. We explore the possibility to explain such an anomaly by the MeV-scale dark matter (DM) heated by the interior of the Sun due to the same DM-electron interaction as in the detector. The kinetic energies of heated DM particles can reach a few keV, and can potentially account for the excess signals detected by XENON1T. We study different form factors of the DM-electron interactions, F(q) ∝ qi with q being the momentum exchange and i = 0, 1, 2, and find that for all these cases the inclusion of the Sun-heated DM component improves the fit to the XENON1T data. The inferred DM-electron scattering cross section (at q = αme where α is the fine structure constant and me is electron mass) is from ∼ 10−38 cm2 (for i = 0) to ∼ 10−42 cm2 (for i = 2). We also derive constraints on the DM-electron cross sections for these form factors, which are stronger than previous results with similar assumptions. We emphasize that the Sun-heated DM scenario relies on the minimum assumption on DM models, which serves as a general explanation of the XENON1T anomaly via DM-electron interaction. The spectrum of the Sun-heated DM is typically soft comparing to other boosted DM, so the small recoil events are expected to be abundant in this scenario. More sensitive direct detection experiments with lower thresholds can possibly distinguish this scenario with other boosted DM models or solar axion models.

“…The search for boosted dark matter has received rising interest as an alternative approach to probe dark sector physics including cosmological dark matter. Several dark matter model frameworks have been proposed in order to give rise to boosted dark matter in the universe today: for example, two-component dark matter scenario [25,26,47,48], Z 3stabilized dark matter models carrying semi-annihilation processes [49], models involving JHEP07(2020)057 dark matter-induced nucleon decays [50], models with decaying super-heavy particles [29,30,51], or cosmic-ray induced energetic dark matter scenarios [52][53][54]. Many ongoing and future dark matter direct detection and neutrino experiments can observe signals induced by boosted dark matter, and a host of phenomenological studies have proposed search strategies, channels, and sources of boosted dark matter [25, 27-34, 36-38, 45-48, 50-54, 77, 78], with regard to those experiments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We note that there are several ways to create relativistic (or at least fast-moving) dark matter particles in the universe: for example, two-component dark matter scenario [25,26,47,48], models with a Z 3 symmetry which may induce semi-annihilation processes [49], models involving anti-baryon-numbered dark matter-induced nucleon decays inside the sun [50], scenarios with decaying super-heavy particles [29,30,51], or energetic cosmic-ray induced (semi-)relativistic dark matter scenarios [52][53][54]. One can also think of various places from which boosted dark matter dominantly comes.…”

Section: Dark Matter Models and Experimental Signaturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing energetic light dark matter searches in dark matter and neutrino experiments

Kim

Machado

Park

et al. 2020

Neutrino and dark matter experiments with large-volume (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 the interactions between the Standard Model particles and boosted dark matter. We find that the signal sensitivity of the two channels highly depends on the (mass-)parameter region to probe, so search strategies and channels should be designed sensibly especially at the earlier stage of experiments. In particular, the contribution from the boosted-dark-matter-initiated deep inelastic scattering can be subleading (important) compared to the quasi-elastic proton scattering, if the mass of the mediator is below (above) O(GeV). We demonstrate how to practically perform searches and relevant analyses, employing example detectors such as DarkSide-20k, DUNE, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DeepCore, with their respective detector specifications taken into consideration. For other potential detectors we provide a summary table, collecting relevant information, from which similar studies can be fulfilled readily.