YHEP-COS-21-01
Cosmic-Neutrino-Boosted Dark Matter (νBDM)
1, 2, 1, 1, Yongsoo Jho, ∗ Jong-Chul Park, † Seong Chan Park, ‡ and Po-Yan Tseng § 1Department of Physics and IPAP, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea 2Department of Physics and Institute of Quantum Systems (IQS), Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea A novel mechanism of boosting dark matter by cosmic neutrinos is proposed. The new mechanism is so significant that the arriving flux of dark matter in the mass window 1 keV . mDM . 1 MeV on Earth can be enhanced by two to four orders of magnitude compared to one only by cosmic electrons. Thereby we firstly derive conservative but still stringent bounds and future sensitivity limits for such cosmic-neutrino-boosted dark matter (νBDM) from advanced underground experiments such as Borexino, PandaX, XENON1T, and JUNO.
I. INTRODUCTION indeed the case for gauged lepton number as mediator, for instance [22, 23]. The existing conclusions regarding Revealing the properties of dark matter (DM) is defi- cosmic-electron-induced BDM should be re-examined. nitely one of the most pressing issues in particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Direct detection experi- ments of DM have particular importance as they aim to II. BOOST MECHANISM BY COSMIC probe interaction of DM with standard model (SM) par- NEUTRINO ticles [1]. However, there exists fundamental limitation in detecting a sub-MeV dark matter set by the maximum Cosmic neutrino inputs. Near Earth, our Sun pro- kinetic energy of the DM particle in halo: Sun vides the dominating neutrino flux dΦν /dKν in the max < 6 < neutrino energy Kν . 10 MeV reaching the maximum KDM 10− mDM 1 eV (1) 8 2 1 1 ∼ ∼ (10 ) [cm− s− keV− ] around Kν 0.3 MeV [19– 3 'O ' with the velocity v 10− . This low kinetic energy 21], which gives the total number of neutrino emission causes a significant problem∼ in detecting light dark mat- rate per unit energy ter since the recoil energy of scattered SM particle is also limited by the kinetic energy 1. On the other hand, dN˙ Sun dΦSun ν ν (4πD2 ) , (2) there still exists a chance to detect a subcomponent of dKν ≡ dKν DM, dubbed ‘boosted dark matter’ (BDM), which may carry much larger energy beyond threshold due to vari- where D = 1 AU is the distance between Sun and
ous mechanisms [4–10] including scattering by energetic Earth. The neutrinos can boost non-relativistic light cosmic-ray particles [11–17]. We note that focus has DM, leaving distinctive signals at terrestrial experiments, been given to cosmic-ray electron and proton so far even e.g. XENON1T [24, 25]. The total contributions from though the chance is not exclusively open for charged all stars for νBDM could be significant compared to the particles. BDM flux by the solar neutrinos. The overall neutrino In this letter, we focus on a noble class of cosmic- flux from all stars in the Milky Way (say, cosmic-neutrino neutrino-boosted-dark matter (νBDM) extending previ- flux) has not been measured by astrophysical observa- ous studies: there exist a huge number of cosmic-ray tions, and could be highly anisotropic, which is different arXiv:2101.11262v1 [hep-ph] 27 Jan 2021 neutrinos arriving at the solar system from various ori- from the isotropic diffused cosmic electrons. In general, gins [18]. Our Sun is also generating a large number DM particles can be boosted by the neutrino flux from of neutrinos [19–21] so that they may boost DM within the nearest star, instead of diffused neutrinos. Keep this the solar system. We find that νBDM can be a domi- philosophy in mind, we will compute the νBDM flux by nant part of the whole BDM when DM-neutrino inter- starting with single star contribution in the following sec- action is as strong as DM-electron interaction, which is tion, then integrate the entire star distribution in the Milky Way.
Cosmic neutrino and DM scattering. The halo DM ∗ [email protected] is boosted by neutrino through the process ν + χ † [email protected]; co-corresponding author → ‡ [email protected]; co-corresponding author ν + χ, which may originate from the exchange of the § [email protected] U(1)Le Li gauge boson or dim-6 effective operators in- − µ 1 Several ideas have been suggested to detect signals with low recoil cluding (`γ¯ `)(¯χγµχ) or (``¯ )(¯χχ). The resulting BDM energies by lowering the threshold energies at detectors (see [2, 3] kinetic energy KDM can be determined from the kinetic and references therein). energy of incoming neutrino Kν . At the halo DM rest