Setting limits on blazar-boosted dark matter with xenon-based detectors
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Barillier, Erin Manenti, Laura Mora, Knut Padovani, Paolo Sarnoff, Isaac Xu, Yongheng Penning, Bjorn Arneodo, Francesco |
| author_facet | Barillier, Erin Manenti, Laura Mora, Knut Padovani, Paolo Sarnoff, Isaac Xu, Yongheng Penning, Bjorn Arneodo, Francesco |
| contents | Dual-phase xenon time projection chambers achieve optimal sensitivity for dark matter in the 10 to 1000 GeV/c$^2$ mass range, but sub-GeV dark matter particles lack sufficient energy to produce nuclear recoils above detection thresholds in these detectors. Blazar-boosted dark matter offers a way to overcome this limitation. Relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei can accelerate light dark matter in their host-galaxy halos to energies that can leave detectable nuclear recoil signals in xenon-based detectors on Earth. We present the first blazar-boosted dark matter search that incorporates detector response modeling, using public data from XENON1T and LZ for the blazar TXS 0506+056. We model dark matter-proton scattering in the jet environment, covering the full process from jet acceleration through to detector response, and we explore how the host-galaxy dark matter density profile impacts the analysis. We set model-dependent exclusion regions on the dark-matter-nucleon scattering cross section for m$_χ$ approximately 1 MeV dark matter, between 5.8$\times 10^{-31}$ cm$^2$ and 6.3$\times 10^{-29}$cm$^2$ using XENON1T data, and between 9.9$\times 10^{-32}$ cm$^2$ and 2.5$\times 10^{-28}$ cm$^2$ from LZ effective field theory (EFT) dark matter searches. Our results show that astrophysical uncertainties, especially those in the dark-matter distribution near the supermassive black hole, are the main limitation of this search rather than detector effects. The limits are therefore model-dependent and should be seen as exploratory, highlighting both the potential and the present uncertainties of blazar-boosted dark matter as a probe of light dark matter. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_07265 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Setting limits on blazar-boosted dark matter with xenon-based detectors Barillier, Erin Manenti, Laura Mora, Knut Padovani, Paolo Sarnoff, Isaac Xu, Yongheng Penning, Bjorn Arneodo, Francesco High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena High Energy Physics - Experiment Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Dual-phase xenon time projection chambers achieve optimal sensitivity for dark matter in the 10 to 1000 GeV/c$^2$ mass range, but sub-GeV dark matter particles lack sufficient energy to produce nuclear recoils above detection thresholds in these detectors. Blazar-boosted dark matter offers a way to overcome this limitation. Relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei can accelerate light dark matter in their host-galaxy halos to energies that can leave detectable nuclear recoil signals in xenon-based detectors on Earth. We present the first blazar-boosted dark matter search that incorporates detector response modeling, using public data from XENON1T and LZ for the blazar TXS 0506+056. We model dark matter-proton scattering in the jet environment, covering the full process from jet acceleration through to detector response, and we explore how the host-galaxy dark matter density profile impacts the analysis. We set model-dependent exclusion regions on the dark-matter-nucleon scattering cross section for m$_χ$ approximately 1 MeV dark matter, between 5.8$\times 10^{-31}$ cm$^2$ and 6.3$\times 10^{-29}$cm$^2$ using XENON1T data, and between 9.9$\times 10^{-32}$ cm$^2$ and 2.5$\times 10^{-28}$ cm$^2$ from LZ effective field theory (EFT) dark matter searches. Our results show that astrophysical uncertainties, especially those in the dark-matter distribution near the supermassive black hole, are the main limitation of this search rather than detector effects. The limits are therefore model-dependent and should be seen as exploratory, highlighting both the potential and the present uncertainties of blazar-boosted dark matter as a probe of light dark matter. |
| title | Setting limits on blazar-boosted dark matter with xenon-based detectors |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena High Energy Physics - Experiment Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07265 |