Terrestrial Effects on Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Experiments

Abstract

A well-studied possibility is that dark matter may reside in a sector secluded from the Standard Model, except for the so-called photon portal: kinetic mixing between the ordinary and dark photons. Such interactions can be probed at dark matter direct detection experiments, and new experimental techniques involving detection of dark matter-electron scattering offer new sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter. Typically however it is implicitly assumed that the dark matter is not altered as it traverses the Earth to arrive at the detector. In this paper we study in detail the effects of terrestrial stopping on dark photon models of dark matter, and find that they significantly reduce the sensitivity of XENON10 and DAMIC. In particular we find that XENON10 only excludes masses in the range (5-3000) MeV while DAMIC only probes (20-50) MeV. Their corresponding cross section sensitivity is reduced to a window of cross sections between $(5\times 10^{-38}-10^{-30}){\mathrm{cm}}^2$ for XENON10 and a small window around $\sim 10^{-31}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ for DAMIC. We also examine implications for a future DAMIC run.

6 pages, 4 figures; v2 update to match PRD version

References in corpus (7)

• A Theory of Dark Matter
• New Fixed-Target Experiments to Search for Dark Gauge Forces
• Probing sub-GeV Dark Matter with conventional detectors
• Extra-weakly Interacting Dark Matter
• Light Dark Matter in Superfluid Helium: Detection with Multi-excitation Production
• Signatures of Earth-scattering in the direct detection of Dark Matter
• Daily Modulation as a Smoking Gun of Dark Matter with Significant Stopping

Cited by in corpus (48)

• The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints
• New Constraints and Prospects for sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering off Electrons in Xenon
• SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Constraints on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Surface Run
• Signs of Dark Matter at 21-cm?
• Detection of sub-MeV Dark Matter with Three-Dimensional Dirac Materials
• Direct Detection of Strongly Interacting Sub-GeV Dark Matter via Electron Recoils
• Strong New Limits on Light Dark Matter from Neutrino Experiments
• Reverse Direct Detection: Cosmic Ray Scattering With Light Dark Matter
• How blind are underground and surface detectors to strongly interacting Dark Matter?
• Testing Light Dark Matter Coannihilation With Fixed-Target Experiments
• Determining Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Rates from the Dielectric Function
• The Migdal Effect and Photon Bremsstrahlung in effective field theories of dark matter direct detection and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Earth-Scattering of super-heavy Dark Matter: updated constraints from detectors old and new
• A Path to the Direct Detection of sub-GeV Dark Matter Using Calorimetric Readout of a Superfluid ${}^4$He Target
• Constraints on Dark Matter with a moderately large and velocity-dependent DM-nucleon cross-section
• Dark Matter-Electron Scattering from Aromatic Organic Targets
• Dark Matter and the XENON1T electron recoil excess
• DaMaSCUS: The Impact of Underground Scatterings on Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter
• Robust Constraints and Novel Gamma-Ray Signatures of Dark Matter That Interacts Strongly With Nucleons
• Search for a Non-Relativistic Component in the Spectrum of Cosmic Rays at Earth
• Observational constraints on dark matter scattering with electrons
• Migdal effect and photon Bremsstrahlung: improving the sensitivity to light dark matter of liquid argon experiments
• Solar reflection of light dark matter with heavy mediators
• Probing sub-GeV mass SIMP dark matter with a low-threshold surface experiment
• New Experimental Constraints in a New Landscape for Composite Dark Matter
• Dark Matter Daily Modulation With Anisotropic Organic Crystals
• No room to hide: implications of cosmic-ray upscattering for GeV-scale dark matter
• A Search for Low-mass Dark Matter via Bremsstrahlung Radiation and the Migdal Effect in SuperCDMS
• Mapping The Neutrino Floor For Dark Matter-Electron Direct Detection Experiments
• Probing Light Dark Matter through Cosmic-Ray Cooling in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Constraints on Dark Matter-Electron Scattering from Molecular Cloud Ionization
• Spectral and optical properties of Ag${}_3$Au(Se${}_2$,Te${}_2$) and dark matter detection
• Dark photon portal dark matter with the 21-cm anomaly
• Dark Matter Direct Detection with Quantum Dots
• Compatibility of a dark matter discovery at XENONnT/LZ with the WIMP thermal production mechanism
• Thick Branes in Extra Dimensions and Suppressed Dark Couplings
• Measuring the local Dark Matter density in the laboratory
• Could the 21-cm absorption be explained by the dark matter suggested by ${}^8$Be transitions?
• Impact of Dark Compton Scattering on Direct Dark Matter Absorption Searches
• Possible s-wave annihilation for MeV dark matter with the 21-cm absorption
• Fat brane, dark matter and localized kinetic terms in six dimensions
• Sub-GeV Dark Matter Direct Detection with Neutrino Observatories
• Nuclear and electron scattering by neutrinos and dark matter in condensed systems
• A model of light pseudoscalar dark matter
• Earth-Scattering Induced Modulation in Low-Threshold Dark Matter Experiments
• Mapping the evolution of supernova-neutrino-boosted dark matter within the Milky Way
• New constraints on dark matter from superconducting nanowires
• First direct search for light dark matter interactions in a transition-edge sensor