{
  "abstract": "The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Collaboration has reported a $248$ keV nuclear-recoil candidate for which endothermic dark matter (DM) gives some of the largest local significances. We study Solar-capture constraints on three interpretations: a thermal Higgsino, a thermal pseudo-Dirac fermion with off-diagonal vector interactions, and neutron-philic endothermic spin-dependent scattering through $\\mathcal{O}_4$. The canonical full-density thermal Higgsino is excluded: its LZ-preferred splitting near $0.38\\,\\mathrm{MeV}$ lies well below the splitting required to suppress Solar capture sufficiently to satisfy the IceCube upper limits on DM annihilation in the Sun, $δ\\gtrsim0.51$-$0.56\\,\\mathrm{MeV}$. For the pseudo-Dirac benchmark parameters that fit the LZ event, we find $C_\\odot=1.53\\times10^{20}\\,\\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, while two-state kinetics limits the fixed-orbit annihilation rate to $Γ_A\\lesssim4.4\\times10^{14}\\,\\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, about $1.7\\times10^5$ below the IceCube upper limit for the $b\\bar b$ channel. A semi-analytic treatment indicates that re-excitation cycles further cool the captured population, although a full phase-space calculation is required for its final distribution. For neutron-philic $\\mathcal{O}_4$ scattering at $m_χ=1$ TeV and $δ=300$ keV, finite-temperature capture gives $C_\\odot=3.98\\times10^{17}\\,\\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, with nuclear-structure uncertainties giving an envelope $(1.77$-$9.72)\\times10^{17}\\,\\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. Under the equilibrium assumption, the upper edge remains about a factor $154$ below the IceCube upper limit for the $b\\bar b$ channel. We use $b\\bar b$ only as a soft-hadronic proxy because an exact constraint requires the model-specific annihilation spectrum. Solar capture therefore excludes the thermal-Higgsino interpretation but not endothermic explanations generically.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Physics , James-Franck-Str. 1 , 85748 Garching , Germany",
    "Technical University of Munich , TUM School of Natural Sciences ,"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.06760",
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Mattia Di Mauro",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2759-5625"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Halim Shaikh",
      "orcid": "0009-0002-4465-4201"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/37fat9gcpma09.bib",
  "cited_by": 36,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.06760",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "37fat9gcpma09",
  "issns": [
    "2331-8422"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06760",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "licence_label": "CC0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.HE"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-th"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3106|Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7212079074",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.06760",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-06",
  "publisher": "Cornell University",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/37fat9gcpma09.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:26Z",
      "native_id": "2609.06760",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06760"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-07T13:20:44Z",
      "native_id": "W7212079074",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06760"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.HE",
      "subfield": "high-energy-astrophysics"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:hep-ph",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Solar Capture Tests of Inelastic Dark Matter after the LZ High-Recoil Event",
  "title_text": "Solar Capture Tests of Inelastic Dark Matter after the LZ High-Recoil Event",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-07T13:20:44Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/37fat9gcpma09",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}