Probing Cosmic-Ray-Boosted and Supernova-Sourced Sub-GeV Dark Matter with Paleo-Detectors
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908978682789888 |
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| author | Chu, Xiaoyong Tsai, Yue-Lin Sming Yang, Mei-Wen |
| author_facet | Chu, Xiaoyong Tsai, Yue-Lin Sming Yang, Mei-Wen |
| contents | Astrophysical dark matter particles with masses well below GeV-scale can be difficult to detect using conventional nuclear recoil experiments due to their low velocities in our Milky Way halo. Elastic scattering with high-energy cosmic rays or thermal production inside core-collapse supernovae can accelerate sub-GeV DM to (semi-)relativistic velocities, producing nuclear recoil energies above the keV threshold that paleo-detectors can record over geological timescales. Using olivine as the target with 100$\,$g$\cdot$Gyr exposure, we compute track length distributions from such (semi-)relativistic dark matter fluxes, incorporating all major backgrounds (neutrinos, uranium-chain neutrons, thorium recoils) with a statistical analysis on an Asimov dataset. We derive 95 C.L. projected sensitivity of paleo-detectors to the DM-nucleon cross section for dark matter masses between a few MeV and hundreds of MeV. Our results show that paleo-detectors are able to probe large parameter regions that are not covered by current and near-future experiments designed to detect dark matter and neutrinos. In particular, paleo-detectors offer a unique ability to record the dark matter flux from Galactic supernova events over geological times. Such cumulative exposure enables sensitivity gains of a few orders of magnitude compared to conventional experiments. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_17869 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Probing Cosmic-Ray-Boosted and Supernova-Sourced Sub-GeV Dark Matter with Paleo-Detectors Chu, Xiaoyong Tsai, Yue-Lin Sming Yang, Mei-Wen High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Astrophysical dark matter particles with masses well below GeV-scale can be difficult to detect using conventional nuclear recoil experiments due to their low velocities in our Milky Way halo. Elastic scattering with high-energy cosmic rays or thermal production inside core-collapse supernovae can accelerate sub-GeV DM to (semi-)relativistic velocities, producing nuclear recoil energies above the keV threshold that paleo-detectors can record over geological timescales. Using olivine as the target with 100$\,$g$\cdot$Gyr exposure, we compute track length distributions from such (semi-)relativistic dark matter fluxes, incorporating all major backgrounds (neutrinos, uranium-chain neutrons, thorium recoils) with a statistical analysis on an Asimov dataset. We derive 95 C.L. projected sensitivity of paleo-detectors to the DM-nucleon cross section for dark matter masses between a few MeV and hundreds of MeV. Our results show that paleo-detectors are able to probe large parameter regions that are not covered by current and near-future experiments designed to detect dark matter and neutrinos. In particular, paleo-detectors offer a unique ability to record the dark matter flux from Galactic supernova events over geological times. Such cumulative exposure enables sensitivity gains of a few orders of magnitude compared to conventional experiments. |
| title | Probing Cosmic-Ray-Boosted and Supernova-Sourced Sub-GeV Dark Matter with Paleo-Detectors |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.17869 |