Death and Serious Injury by Dark Matter

Abstract

Macroscopic dark matter refers to a variety of dark matter candidates that would be expected to (elastically) scatter off of ordinary matter with a large geometric cross-section. A wide range of macro masses $M_X$ and cross-sections ${\sigma }_X$ remain unprobed. We show that over a wide region within the unexplored parameter space, collisions of a macro with a human body would result in serious injury or death. We use the absence of such unexplained impacts with a well-monitored subset of the human population to exclude a region bounded by ${\sigma }_X\ge 10^{-8}-10^{-7}$ cm${}^2$ and $M_X<50$ kg. Our results open a new window on dark matter: the human body as a dark matter detector.

arXiv comment9 pages, 2 figure

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• Updated cosmological constraints on Macroscopic Dark Matter
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• Models of ultra-heavy dark matter visible to macroscopic mechanical sensing arrays
• Radiation Exposure from the Dark
• Microscopic composite systems bound by strong gravity in extra dimensions as candidates for dark matter
• Listening for ultra-heavy dark matter with underwater acoustic detectors