Dark matter - electron interactions in materials beyond the dark photon model

Abstract

The search for sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles via electronic transitions in underground detectors attracted much theoretical and experimental interest in the past few years. A still open question in this field is whether experimental results can in general be interpreted in a framework where the response of detector materials to an external DM probe is described by a single ionisation or crystal form factor, as expected for the so-called dark photon model. Here, ionisation and crystal form factors are examples of material response functions: interaction-specific integrals of the initial and final state electron wave functions. In this work, we address this question through a systematic classification of the material response functions induced by a wide range of models for spin-0, spin-1/2 and spin-1 DM. We find several examples for which an accurate description of the electronic transition rate at DM direct detection experiments requires material response functions that go beyond those expected for the dark photon model. This concretely illustrates the limitations of a framework that is entirely based on the standard ionisation and crystal form factors, and points towards the need for the general response-function-based formalism we pushed forward recently [1,2]. For the models that require non-standard atomic and crystal response functions, we use the response functions of [1,2] to calculate the DM-induced electronic transition rate in atomic and crystal detectors, and to present 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the strength of the DM-electron interaction from the null results reported by XENON10, XENON1T, EDELWEISS and SENSEI.

35 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Non-relativistic effective theory of dark matter direct detection
• Spin-Dependent Macroscopic Forces from New Particle Exchange
• Detection of sub-MeV Dark Matter with Three-Dimensional Dirac Materials
• Semiconductor Probes of Light Dark Matter
• Diamond Detectors for Direct Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• Emission of Single and Few Electrons in XENON1T and Limits on Light Dark Matter
• SiC Detectors for Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• Determining Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Rates from the Dielectric Function
• Dark matter-electron scattering in dielectrics
• Searches for light dark matter using condensed matter systems
• Extended Calculation of Dark Matter-Electron Scattering in Crystal Targets
• Crystal responses to general dark matter-electron interactions
• Dark Matter Direct Detection in Materials with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• DM-electron scattering in materials: sum rules and heterostructures

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Absorption of Axion Dark Matter in a Magnetized Medium
• Linear response theory for light dark matter-electron scattering in materials
• Revisiting general dark matter-bound-electron interactions
• Plasmon-enhanced Direct Detection Method for Boosted sub-MeV Dark Matter
• Absorption of Vector Dark Matter Beyond Kinetic Mixing
• The Non-Relativistic Effective Field Theory Of Dark Matter-Electron Interactions
• Wavelet-Harmonic Integration Methods
• Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Search Using Cryogenic Light Detectors
• Strong Constraints on Dark Photon and Scalar Dark Matter Decay from INTEGRAL and AMS-02 data
• Can we use heavy nuclei to detect relic neutrinos?
• The linear response theory approach to the sub-GeV dark matter in the Sun
• A general upper bound on the light dark matter scattering rate in materials
• Electronic structure of liquid xenon in the context of light dark matter direct detection
• Cutting rules for non-relativistic dark matter in solids based on Kohn-Sham orbitals
• On the dark matter origin of an LDMX signal