The Migdal effect in Semiconductors for the Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866911512441913344 |
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| author | Berghaus, Kim V. Essig, Rouven McDuffie, Megan H. |
| author_facet | Berghaus, Kim V. Essig, Rouven McDuffie, Megan H. |
| contents | The Migdal effect in semiconductors, prompt ionization from a primary nuclear scattering event, can be described across all kinematic regimes using an effective field theory that encodes the complex vibrational and electronic degrees of freedom of the crystal in measurable structure factors. Simultaneously, general dark matter-nucleus interactions can be systematically described using non-relativistic effective field theory operators. We combine these two effective field theory frameworks to calculate the Migdal effect in semiconductors for all ten dimension-six non-relativistic operators. From the effective Hamiltonian, we find that DM-nucleus scattering factorizes from the ionization and vibrational excitation signal as it does in the free-atom case. Using data from EDELWEISS that was taken with a germanium detector, we derive new experimental bounds on each operator and compare these limits to other direct-detection constraints in the literature. We find the accessible parameter space to be disfavored by bounds on heavy mediators contained in simple UV completions that generate the effective operators. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_13052 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Migdal effect in Semiconductors for the Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection Berghaus, Kim V. Essig, Rouven McDuffie, Megan H. High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment The Migdal effect in semiconductors, prompt ionization from a primary nuclear scattering event, can be described across all kinematic regimes using an effective field theory that encodes the complex vibrational and electronic degrees of freedom of the crystal in measurable structure factors. Simultaneously, general dark matter-nucleus interactions can be systematically described using non-relativistic effective field theory operators. We combine these two effective field theory frameworks to calculate the Migdal effect in semiconductors for all ten dimension-six non-relativistic operators. From the effective Hamiltonian, we find that DM-nucleus scattering factorizes from the ionization and vibrational excitation signal as it does in the free-atom case. Using data from EDELWEISS that was taken with a germanium detector, we derive new experimental bounds on each operator and compare these limits to other direct-detection constraints in the literature. We find the accessible parameter space to be disfavored by bounds on heavy mediators contained in simple UV completions that generate the effective operators. |
| title | The Migdal effect in Semiconductors for the Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13052 |