Magnetic inelastic dark matter: Directional signals without a directional detector

Lin, Tongyan; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.83.083510

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…See for example refs [39][40][41]. for similar manipulations in the context of direct-detection of dark matter where the analytic expressions are rather simple.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark matter detection in two easy steps

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Multi-component dark matter particles may have a more intricate direct detection signal than simple elastic scattering on nuclei. In a broad class of well-motivated models the inelastic excitation of dark matter particles is followed by de-excitation via $\gamma$-decay. In experiments with fine energy resolution, such as many $0\nu 2\beta$ decay experiments, this motivates a highly model-independent search for the sidereal daily modulation of an unexpected $\gamma$ line. Such a signal arises from two-step WIMP interaction: the WIMP is first excited in the lead shielding and subsequently decays back to the ground state via the emission of a monochromatic $\gamma$ within the detector volume. We explore this idea in detail by considering the model of magnetic inelastic WIMPs, and take a sequence of CUORE-type detectors as an example. We find that under reasonable assumptions about detector performance it is possible to efficiently explore mass splittings of up to few hundreds of keV for a WIMP of weak-scale mass and transitional magnetic moments. The modulation can be cheaply and easily enhanced by the presence of additional asymmetric lead shielding. We devise a toy simulation to show that a specially designed asymmetric shielding may result in up to $30\%$ diurnal modulations of the two-step WIMP signal, leading to additional strong gains in sensitivity.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figure

show abstract

“…See for example refs [39][40][41]. for similar manipulations in the context of direct-detection of dark matter where the analytic expressions are rather simple.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark matter detection in two easy steps

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hence, it may be very difficult to disentangle possible DM annihilation signals from the background fluxes. The monochromatic gamma-ray lines appearing from DM 8 It has been predicted that the possible enhancement from the subhalo has an angular and/or energy dependence on the cosmic rays. The enhancement can be different in each channel, but there are still no clear experimental evidences for dark clumps.…”

Section: The Gamma-ray Channelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently several DM models 1 (inelastic DM [7,8], asymmetric DM [9], form factor DM [10]) with magnetic dipole interaction have been considered. DM in these models has a few states and has no direct interaction with the photon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dipole-interacting fermionic dark matter in positron, antiproton, and gamma-ray channels

Heo

Kim

2013

Phys. Rev. D

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cosmic ray signals from dipole-interacting dark matter annihilation are considered in the positron, antiproton, and photon channels. The predicted signals in the positron channel could nicely account for the excess of positron fraction from Fermi LAT, PAMELA, HEAT, and AMS-01 experiments for the dark matter mass larger than 100 GeV with a boost (enhancement) factor of 30-80. No excess of antiproton over proton ratio at the experiments also gives a severe restriction for this scenario. With the boost factors, the predicted signals from Galactic halo and signals as monoenergetic gamma-ray lines (monochromatic photons) for the region close to the Galactic center are investigated. The gamma-ray excess of recent tentative analyses based on Fermi LAT data and the potential probe of the monochromatic lines at a planned experiment, AMS-02, are also considered.

show abstract

“…Inelastic dark matter [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] -where dark matter scatters off nuclei into an excited state -provides interesting new signals of dark matter. While originally motivated by the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation [2,3,6,9,13,15,16], an inelastic dark matter explanation is now extremely difficult to reconcile with current data from several different experiments, despite valiant model building efforts [13,[17][18][19][20][21][22]. One of the appeals of inelastic dark matter is that it provides a rationale for why dark matter has not yet been seen in direct detection experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Luminous signals of inelastic dark matter in large detectors

Eby

Fox

Harnik

et al. 2019

J. High Energ. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study luminous dark matter signals in models with inelastic scattering. Dark matter χ 1 that scatters inelastically off elements in the Earth is kicked into an excited state χ 2 that can subsequently decay into a monoenergetic photon inside a detector. The photon signal exhibits large sidereal-daily modulation due to the daily rotation of the Earth and anisotropies in the problem: the dark matter wind comes from the direction of Cygnus due to the Sun's motion relative to the galaxy, and the rock overburden is anisotropic, as is the dark matter scattering angle. This allows outstanding separation of signal from backgrounds. We investigate the sensitivity of two classes of large underground detectors to this modulating photon line signal: large liquid scintillator neutrino experiments, including Borexino and JUNO, and the proposed large gaseous scintillator directional detection experiment CYGNUS. Borexino's (JUNO's) sensitivity exceeds the bounds from xenon experiments on inelastic nuclear recoil for mass splittings δ > ∼ 240(180) keV, and is the only probe of inelastic dark matter for 350 keV < ∼ δ < ∼ 600 keV. CYGNUS's sensitivity is at least comparable to xenon experiments with ∼ 10 m 3 volume detector for δ < ∼ 150 keV, and could be substantially better with larger volumes and improved background rejection. Such improvements lead to the unusual situation that the inelastic signal becomes the superior way to search for dark matter even if the elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections are comparable.

show abstract

Magnetic inelastic dark matter: Directional signals without a directional detector

Cited by 25 publications

References 66 publications

Dark matter detection in two easy steps

Dark matter detection in two easy steps

Dipole-interacting fermionic dark matter in positron, antiproton, and gamma-ray channels

Luminous signals of inelastic dark matter in large detectors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About