Direct Detection Phenomenology in Models Where the Products of Dark Matter Annihilation Interact with Nuclei

• Published in: Physical review letters 2015-06, Vol.114 (23), p.231303-231303, Article 231303
• Main Authors: Cherry, John F, Frandsen, Mads T, Shoemaker, Ian M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Couplings; Cross sections; Dark matter; Kinematics; Modulation; Nuclei; Phenomenology; Scattering
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.231303

We investigate the direct detection phenomenology of a class of dark matter (DM) models in which DM does not directly interact with nuclei, but rather, the products of its annihilation do. When these annihilation products are very light compared to the DM mass, the scattering in direct detection experiments is controlled by relativistic kinematics. This results in a distinctive recoil spectrum, a nonstandard and/or even absent annual modulation, and the ability to probe DM masses as low as a ∼10  MeV. We use current LUX data to show that experimental sensitivity to thermal relic annihilation cross sections has already been reached in a class of models. Moreover, the compatibility of dark matter direct detection experiments can be compared directly in Emin space without making assumptions about DM astrophysics, mass, or scattering form factors. Lastly, when DM has direct couplings to nuclei, the limit from annihilation to relativistic particles in the Sun can be stronger than that of conventional nonrelativistic direct detection by more than 3 orders of magnitude for masses in a 2-7 GeV window.