Search for Light Dark Matter in Low-Energy Ionization Signals from XENONnT

Abstract

We report on a blinded search for dark matter with single- and few-electron signals in the first science run of XENONnT relying on a novel detector response framework that is physics-model-dependent. We derive 90\% confidence upper limits for dark matter-electron interactions. Heavy and light mediator cases are considered for the standard halo model and dark matter up-scattered in the Sun. We set stringent new limits on dark matter-electron scattering via a heavy mediator with a mass within 10-20\,MeV/$c^2$ and electron absorption of axion-like particles and dark photons for $m_{\chi }$ below 0.186\,keV/$c^2$.

9 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (17)

• First Dark Matter Search Results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• First Dark Matter Search with Nuclear Recoils from the XENONnT Experiment
• Bosonic super-WIMPs as keV-scale dark matter
• Search for New Physics in Electronic Recoil Data from XENONnT
• Search for Light Dark Matter-Electron Scatterings in the PandaX-II Experiment
• First Constraints from DAMIC-M on Sub-GeV Dark-Matter Particles Interacting with Electrons
• Dark Matter Search Results from 1.54 Tonne$\cdot$Year Exposure of PandaX-4T
• Emission of Single and Few Electrons in XENON1T and Limits on Light Dark Matter
• SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Results on sub-GeV Dark Matter from SENSEI at SNOLAB
• Search for dark matter particle interactions with electron final states with DarkSide-50
• Search for light dark matter with ionization signals in the PandaX-4T Experiment
• Conceptual design and simulation of a water Cherenkov muon veto for the XENON1T experiment
• The XENONnT Dark Matter Experiment
• A search for new physics in low-energy electron recoils from the first LZ exposure
• Solar reflection of light dark matter with heavy mediators
• First Search for Light Dark Matter in the Neutrino Fog with XENONnT
• Experimental Limits on Solar Reflected Dark Matter with a New Approach on Accelerated-Dark-Matter-Electron Analysis in Semiconductors

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Probing Benchmark Models of Hidden-Sector Dark Matter with DAMIC-M
• New constraints on cosmic ray-boosted dark matter from the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment
• Search for low-mass electron-recoil dark matter using a single-charge sensitive SuperCDMS-HVeV Detector
• Light Dark Matter Search with 7.8 Tonne-Year of Ionization-Only Data in XENONnT
• SENSEI: A Search for Diurnal Modulation in sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering
• Development & Characterization of Electrodes for large-scale Xenon Time Projection Chambers
• Constraints on sub-GeV dark matter scattering on electrons with COSINE-100
• Measurement of the Quantum Efficiency of Electrode Materials for VUV Photons in Liquid Xenon
• Freeze-in Production of Non-Abelian Millicharged Vector Dark Matter