Light dark matter: Models and constraints

By S. Knapen, Tongyan Lin, K. Zurek. 2017

313 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the direct detection prospects for a representative set of simplified models of sub-GeV dark matter (DM), accounting for existing terrestrial, astrophysical and cosmological constraints. We focus on dark matter lighter than an MeV, where these constraints are most stringent, and find three scenarios with accessible direct detection cross sections: (i) DM interacting via an ultralight kinetically mixed dark photon, (ii) a DM subcomponent interacting with nucleons or electrons through a light scalar or vector mediator, and (iii) DM coupled with nucleons via a mediator heavier than $\ensuremath{\sim}100\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{keV}$.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/627e9d63d7ba854461046df3987b6fc39d31abc6

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Citations in the corpus

The Dark Photon (2020, background): “When dark matter is lighter than the dark photon, and mA′ > 2mχ, the annihilation channel (see Fig.2) χχ̄→ A′ → f̄f (24) is open and we are in a scenario with light dark matter (LDM) (Essig et al., 2012b; Knapen et al., 2017).”
Dark matter models and direct detection (2019, background): “[67], constraints on sub-GeV scalar mediators assuming φ does not decay to hidden sector states.”
CMB-S4 Science Case, Reference Design, and Project Plan (2019, background): “We see that cosmological measurements of ∆Neff are an extremely sensitive probe of dark-sector physics that are complementary to more direct tests, both in the laboratory and with astrophysical observations [196, 197].”
Refined bounds on MeV-scale thermal dark sectors from BBN and the CMB (2019, unknown): “[33] S.”