Inelastic from the Other Side: Xenon Excitation Signals in Light of the LZ High-Recoil Event
- 1Department of Physics and Institute of Theoretical Physics , Nanjing Normal University , Nanjing , Jiangsu 210023 , China
- 2School of Physical Science and Technology , Xinjiang University , Urumqi 830046 , China
- 3Fysikkbygningen , Sem Sælandsvei 24 , N-0371 , Oslo , Norway
Abstract
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment recently reported a single event consistent with a nuclear recoil of ENR∼248±23 (stat)±23 (syst)~keV in an extended-energy search. We study the accompanying inelastic-xenon channel, χ+Xe→χ+Xe*, which provides a complementary test of DM interpretations of such high-recoil events. Using the non-relativistic effective-field-theory (NREFT) framework with shell-model nuclear-transition inputs, we compute the inelastic-xenon rates for representative scenarios including inelastic dark matter and accelerated DM populations. We also simulate their S1--S2 responses, with detector modeling validated against public LZ data. The nuclear de-excitation adds an electromagnetic component shifting the signal toward the electronic-recoil band and, in some cases, toward clustered backgrounds from isotopes. We therefore construct a schematic, physics-motivated background model and perform a simplified statistical analysis. For many benchmarks, the inelastic-xenon rate is 𝒪(0.1) of the elastic rate or below, suggesting that substantially larger exposures are required before this companion channel becomes observable. Our results illustrate the importance of isotope-induced background structures in the extended-energy region and extend the phenomenology of inelastic-xenon signatures to a wider range of DM scenarios.
Related
- For Whom the Xenon Recoils: Magnetic Inelastic Dark Baryons
- Xenon Isotope Filtering at the Kinematic Edge of Inelastic Dark Matter
- Inelastic Dark Matter and High-Energy Recoil Signatures in LZ
- Explaining the LZ High-Energy Recoil Event with Inelastic Sneutrino Dark Matter in Supersymmetry
- Inelastic Dark Matter from a Higher-Dimensional Operator: The LUX-ZEPLIN High-Recoil Event and Thermal Relic
BibTeX
@misc{gu2026inelastic,
title = {{Inelastic from the Other Side: Xenon Excitation Signals in Light of the LZ High-Recoil Event}},
author = {Guanhua Gu and Lingfeng Li and S. M. Tang and Yongheng Xu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.05291},
eprint = {2609.05291},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05291},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Inelastic from the Other Side: Xenon Excitation Signals in Light of the LZ High-Recoil Event
AU - Guanhua Gu
AU - Lingfeng Li
AU - S. M. Tang
AU - Yongheng Xu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.05291
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05291
AB - The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment recently reported a single event consistent with a nuclear recoil of E_NR∼248±23 (stat)±23 (syst)~keV in an extended-energy search. We study the accompanying inelastic-xenon channel, χ+Xe→χ+Xe^*, which provides a complementary test of DM interpretations of such high-recoil events. Using the non-relativistic effective-field-theory (NREFT) framework with shell-model nuclear-transition inputs, we compute the inelastic-xenon rates for representative scenarios including inelastic dark matter and accelerated DM populations. We also simulate their S1--S2 responses, with detector modeling validated against public LZ data. The nuclear de-excitation adds an electromagnetic component shifting the signal toward the electronic-recoil band and, in some cases, toward clustered backgrounds from isotopes. We therefore construct a schematic, physics-motivated background model and perform a simplified statistical analysis. For many benchmarks, the inelastic-xenon rate is 𝒪(0.1) of the elastic rate or below, suggesting that substantially larger exposures are required before this companion channel becomes observable. Our results illustrate the importance of isotope-induced background structures in the extended-energy region and extend the phenomenology of inelastic-xenon signatures to a wider range of DM scenarios.
SN - 2331-8422
ER -