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Main Authors: Taufertshöfer, Nora, Zema, Vanessa, Catena, Riccardo, Olevano, Valerio, Spaldin, Nicola A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14345
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author Taufertshöfer, Nora
Zema, Vanessa
Catena, Riccardo
Olevano, Valerio
Spaldin, Nicola A.
author_facet Taufertshöfer, Nora
Zema, Vanessa
Catena, Riccardo
Olevano, Valerio
Spaldin, Nicola A.
contents We determine whether excitonic effects affect predictions of dark matter (DM)-electron scattering rates by calculating the energy- and momentum-dependent energy-loss function, including electron-hole interaction excitonic effects, for the dark-matter scintillating detector materials GaAs and NaI. By comparing our results using the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the framework of many-body perturbation theory, which explicitly includes excitonic effects, with those using the quasiparticle random-phase approximation, which includes only electron-electron interaction and crystal local-field effects, we find that excitonic effects in NaI significantly increase the predicted scattering rate at low energy and as a result improve the cross-section sensitivity considering a realistic background. In contrast, the predicted scattering rate and the DM-electron scattering cross-section for GaAs are minimally affected by excitonic effects.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_14345
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Excitonic contributions to dark matter-electron scattering
Taufertshöfer, Nora
Zema, Vanessa
Catena, Riccardo
Olevano, Valerio
Spaldin, Nicola A.
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Materials Science
We determine whether excitonic effects affect predictions of dark matter (DM)-electron scattering rates by calculating the energy- and momentum-dependent energy-loss function, including electron-hole interaction excitonic effects, for the dark-matter scintillating detector materials GaAs and NaI. By comparing our results using the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the framework of many-body perturbation theory, which explicitly includes excitonic effects, with those using the quasiparticle random-phase approximation, which includes only electron-electron interaction and crystal local-field effects, we find that excitonic effects in NaI significantly increase the predicted scattering rate at low energy and as a result improve the cross-section sensitivity considering a realistic background. In contrast, the predicted scattering rate and the DM-electron scattering cross-section for GaAs are minimally affected by excitonic effects.
title Excitonic contributions to dark matter-electron scattering
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14345