New Limits on Light Dark Matter-Nucleon Scattering

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Cox, Peter, Dolan, Matthew J., Wood, Joshua
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Cox, Peter
Dolan, Matthew J.
Wood, Joshua
author_facet Cox, Peter
Dolan, Matthew J.
Wood, Joshua
contents We derive new bounds on hadronically-interacting, sub-GeV mass dark matter. First, we show that one-loop interactions with photons can be sufficient to maintain equilibrium between the dark matter and Standard Model sectors at MeV temperatures, resulting in constraints from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. Using chiral perturbation theory, we find that this leads to an upper bound on the dark-matter--nucleon scattering cross-section that is orders of magnitude stronger than existing astrophysical constraints. Furthermore, we show that even if these interactions remain out of equilibrium, there is an irreducible freeze-in abundance of dark matter that can easily overclose the universe. We also compute new bounds from rare Kaon decays that can provide even stronger constraints. Our results have significant implications for future direct detection experiments aiming to search for MeV-scale dark matter.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_12144
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle New Limits on Light Dark Matter-Nucleon Scattering
Cox, Peter
Dolan, Matthew J.
Wood, Joshua
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
We derive new bounds on hadronically-interacting, sub-GeV mass dark matter. First, we show that one-loop interactions with photons can be sufficient to maintain equilibrium between the dark matter and Standard Model sectors at MeV temperatures, resulting in constraints from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. Using chiral perturbation theory, we find that this leads to an upper bound on the dark-matter--nucleon scattering cross-section that is orders of magnitude stronger than existing astrophysical constraints. Furthermore, we show that even if these interactions remain out of equilibrium, there is an irreducible freeze-in abundance of dark matter that can easily overclose the universe. We also compute new bounds from rare Kaon decays that can provide even stronger constraints. Our results have significant implications for future direct detection experiments aiming to search for MeV-scale dark matter.
title New Limits on Light Dark Matter-Nucleon Scattering
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.12144