Speaker
Description
Direct detection experiments traditionally search for nuclear recoils induced by coherent elastic scattering of halo dark matter particles. This mechanism, however, becomes inefficient for sub-GeV dark matter unless the particles are boosted by astrophysical processes or some other mechanism. In this contribution, we point out that accelerated dark matter interacts with nuclei not only via coherent elastic scattering, but also through inelastic channels, including scattering off individual nucleons and partons, which can produce detectable signatures in neutrino experiments. We discuss the theoretical challenges in consistently describing these processes and demonstrate that their inclusion is essential for realistic sensitivity estimates. As a case study, we consider the cosmic-ray up-scattered dark matter and show that accounting for inelastic scattering significantly impacts the projected reach of the upcoming DUNE neutrino experiment.
| Main Contribution topic | Theory / Phenomenology |
|---|---|
| Secondary contribution topic | Light Dark Matter |