Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE

Abstract

Detection of sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles in direct detection experiments is inherently difficult, as their low kinetic energies in the galactic halo are insufficient to produce observable recoils of the heavy nuclei in the detectors. On the other hand, whenever DM particles interact with nucleons, they can be accelerated by scattering with galactic cosmic rays. These cosmic-ray-boosted DM particles can then interact not only through coherent elastic scattering with nuclei, but also through scattering with individual nucleons in the detectors and produce outgoing particles at MeV to GeV kinetic energies. The resulting signal spectrum overlaps with the detection capabilities of modern neutrino experiments. One future experiment is the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Our study shows that DUNE has a unique ability to search for cosmic-ray boosted DM with sensitivity comparable to dedicated direct detection experiments in the case of spin-independent interactions. Importantly, DUNE's sensitivity reaches similar values of DM-nucleon cross sections also in the case of spin-dependent interactions, offering a key advantage over traditional direct detection experiments.

arXiv comment31 pages, 6 figures. Version v2 corresponds to the published version

References in corpus (86)

• Particle Dark Matter: Evidence, Candidates and Constraints
• Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics
• The GENIE Neutrino Monte Carlo Generator
• DarkSUSY: Computing Supersymmetric Dark Matter Properties Numerically
• Transport-theoretical Description of Nuclear Reactions
• Calculation of atmospheric neutrino flux using the interaction model calibrated with atmospheric muon data
• A High Spectral Resolution Observation of the Soft X-ray Diffuse Background with Thermal Detectors
• The Dark Photon
• Atmospheric neutrino flux calculation using the NRLMSISE00 atmospheric model
• Model-independent WIMP Scattering Responses and Event Rates: A Mathematica Package for Experimental Analysis
• Serendipity in dark photon searches
• Novel direct detection constraints on light dark matter
• Migdal Effect in Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• (In)direct Detection of Boosted Dark Matter
• Light Dark Matter at Neutrino Experiments
• Improvement of low energy atmospheric neutrino flux calculation using the JAM nuclear interaction model
• DarkSUSY 6 : An Advanced Tool to Compute Dark Matter Properties Numerically
• Refined Bounds on MeV-scale Thermal Dark Sectors from BBN and the CMB
• New constraints on light vectors coupled to anomalous currents
• Results on MeV-scale dark matter from a gram-scale cryogenic calorimeter operated above ground
• Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ evaluation
• The Dark Z' Portal: Direct, Indirect and Collider Searches
• Probing sub-GeV Dark Matter with conventional detectors
• Model Independent Form Factors for Spin Independent Neutralino-Nucleon Scattering from Elastic Electron Scattering Data
• From quarks to nucleons in dark matter direct detection
• Directly Detecting MeV-scale Dark Matter via Solar Reflection
• Strong New Limits on Light Dark Matter from Neutrino Experiments
• Reverse Direct Detection: Cosmic Ray Scattering With Light Dark Matter
• REALISTIC MODELS WITH A LIGHT U(1) GAUGE BOSON COUPLED TO BARYON NUMBER
• Possible Light U(1) Gauge Boson Coupled to Baryon Number
• How blind are underground and surface detectors to strongly interacting Dark Matter?
• Final Results of the PICASSO Dark Matter Search Experiment
• New weakly-coupled forces hidden in low-energy QCD
• Inference of the Local Interstellar Spectra of Cosmic Ray Nuclei Z<=28 with the GalProp-HelMod Framework
• Axial Dark Matter: the case for an invisible Z'
• Bounds on Cosmic Ray-Boosted Dark Matter in Simplified Models and its Corresponding Neutrino-Floor
• Higher Twist, ${\xi }_w$ Scaling, and Effective $LOPDFs$ for Lepton Scattering in the Few GeV Region
• Boosted Dark Matter in IceCube and at the Galactic Center
• Detecting Boosted Dark Matter from the Sun with Large Volume Neutrino Detectors
• Maximizing Direct Detection with Highly Interactive Particle Relic Dark Matter
• Light Weakly Coupled Axial Forces: Models, Constraints, and Projections
• Direct detection and complementary constraints for sub-GeV dark matter
• Constraints on Dark Matter with a moderately large and velocity-dependent DM-nucleon cross-section
• Dark Matter "Collider" from Inelastic Boosted Dark Matter
• New limits on light dark matter - proton cross section from the cosmic large-scale structure
• DaMaSCUS: The Impact of Underground Scatterings on Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter
• Search for a Non-Relativistic Component in the Spectrum of Cosmic Rays at Earth
• Exploring for sub-MeV Boosted Dark Matter from Xenon Electron Direct Detection
• Leptonic New Force and Cosmic-ray Boosted Dark Matter for the XENON1T Excess
• The Sun as a sub-GeV Dark Matter Accelerator
• Highly-boosted dark matter and cutoff for cosmic-ray neutrino through neutrino portal
• Production and attenuation of cosmic-ray boosted dark matter
• Deciphering the local Interstellar spectra of primary cosmic ray species with HelMod
• Implications of BBN Bounds for Cosmic Ray Upscattered Dark Matter
• Neutrino experiments probe hadrophilic light dark matter
• Bounds on velocity-dependent dark matter-proton scattering from Milky Way satellite abundance
• Elastic and Inelastic Scattering of Cosmic-Rays on Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• Diurnal Effect of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Boosted by Cosmic Rays
• Scattering searches for dark matter in subhalos: neutron stars, cosmic rays, and old rocks
• Cosmic Ray Boosted Sub-GeV Gravitationally Interacting Dark Matter in Direct Detection
• Probing Light Dark Matter via Evaporation from the Sun
• Limits on a Light Leptophobic Gauge Boson
• Present and future status of light dark matter models from cosmic-ray electron upscattering
• Prospects for Detecting Boosted Dark Matter in DUNE through Hadronic Interactions
• Millicharged Cosmic Rays and Low Recoil Detectors
• $Z^{\prime }$ Mediated WIMPs: Dead, Dying, or Soon to be Detected?
• No room to hide: implications of cosmic-ray upscattering for GeV-scale dark matter
• Probing Cosmic-Ray Accelerated Light Dark Matter with IceCube
• Cosmic-ray dark matter confronted by constraints on new light mediators
• Bounds on boosted dark matter from direct detection: The role of energy-dependent cross sections
• Resonant or asymmetric: The status of sub-GeV dark matter
• Azimuthal asymmetry in cosmic-ray boosted dark matter flux
• Searching for Boosted Dark Matter mediated by a new Gauge Boson
• On $(g-2{)}_{\mu }$ From Gauged $\mathrm{U}(1{)}_X$
• Probing Energetic Light Dark Matter with Multi-Particle Tracks Signatures at DUNE
• Prospects for Light Dark Matter Searches at Large-Volume Neutrino Detectors
• Constraints on cosmic-ray boosted dark matter with realistic cross section
• An Improved Bound on Accelerated Light Dark Matter
• Accelerated Light Dark Matter-Earth Inelastic Scattering in Direct Detection
• Large Energy Singles at JUNO from Atmospheric Neutrinos and Dark Matter
• $Z^{\prime }$-mediated Majorana dark matter: suppressed direct-detection rate and complementarity of LHC searches
• The Higgs and Leptophobic Force at the LHC
• Attenuation of Cosmic Ray Electron Boosted Dark Matter
• Dark Matter Raining on DUNE and Other Large Volume Detectors
• Directional direct detection of light dark matter up-scattered by cosmic rays from direction of the Galactic center
• Atmospheric neutrino spectrum reconstruction with JUNO

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Boosted dark matter versus dark matter-induced neutrinos from single and stacked blazars
• Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector