Constraints on cosmic-ray boosted dark matter in CDEX-10 *

Abstract

Dark matter (DM) direct detection experiments have been setting strong limits on the DM-nucleon scattering cross section at the DM mass above a few GeV, but leave large parameter space unexplored in the low mass region. DM is likely to be scattered and boosted by relativistic cosmic rays in the expanding universe if it can generate nuclear recoils in direct detection experiments to offer observable signals. Since low energy threshold detectors using Germanium have provided good constraints on ordinary halo GeV-scale DM, it is necessary to re-analyze 102.8 kg$\times$day data in the CDEX-10 experiment assuming that DM is boosted by cosmic rays. For the DM mass range 1 keV $<m_\chi <$ 1 MeV and the effective distance within 1 kpc, we reach an almost flat floor limit at $8.32\times10^{-30}$ cm$^2$ on spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering cross section at a 90\% confidence level. The CDEX-10 result is able to close the gap unambiguously in the parameter space between MiniBooNE and XENON1T constraints which was partially hindered by the Earth attenuation effect. We also quantitatively calculate expected neutrino floor on searching for CRBDM in future direct detection experiments using Germanium. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Article funded by SCOAP3 and published under licence by Chinese Physical Society and the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd.

No room to hide: implications of cosmic-ray upscattering for GeV-scale dark matter

“…this initial work pointed out the advantages of considering such a boosting mechanism, a large number of further analyses have addressed various aspects of the production , attenuation [46,47], and detection [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] of astrophysically boosted DM. For a recent comprehensive (re-)analysis of all of these aspects see, e.g.…”

XENONnT and LUX-ZEPLIN constraints on DSNB-boosted dark matter

“…Such a BDM would contribute as a subdominant component of the total DM flux, but would nonetheless enhance the mass reach of DD experiments, allowing to explore the sub-GeV range. This idea has first been proposed considering DM boosting from the scattering with energetic galactic cosmic rays [19,20] and has been extensively discussed in the literature, see for instance [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. More recently, the possibility that DM is boosted through its scattering with neutrinos has also been envisaged, either considering cosmic neutrinos [37], solar neutrinos [38], neutrinos from primordial black holes evaporation [39][40][41][42], supernova neutrinos [43,44] or the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) [45,46].…”

Constraints on sub-GeV dark matter boosted by cosmic rays from the CDEX-10 experiment at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory

“…Recently, it has been pointed out that DM particles can be boosted to relativistic or near-relativistic momenta by high en-ergy particles in the Galaxy, enabling them to generate sufficient nuclear recoil energy in the detector. Such boosted DM can be produced by cosmic-ray nuclei and electrons (termed the CRDM scenario) [23][24][25][26][27][28][29], astrophysical neutrinos [30][31][32][33], and high energy electrons inside the Sun [34,35].…”