For Whom the Xenon Recoils: Magnetic Inelastic Dark Baryons
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Physics and Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics , University of California Santa Cruz , Santa Cruz , CA 95064 , USA
- 2Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics , California Institute of Technology , Pasadena , CA 91125 , USA
- 3Theory Division , Fermilab , Batavia , IL 60510 , USA
- 4Department of Physics , University of Oregon , Eugene , OR 97403 , USA
- 5Pitt-PACC , Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh , PA , 15260 , USA
- 6Institute for Fundamental Science and
Abstract
We develop a theory of a dark baryon dark matter candidate that interacts with nuclei dominantly through inelastic scattering mediated by a transition magnetic dipole operator. Models are presented that can elegantly explain both the scattering rate and the size of the inelastic splitting to be consistent with the one event observed at LZ\@. Elastic scattering is suppressed due to accidental symmetries within the strongly-coupled sector. The nuclear response is dominated by a spin-dependent structure factor, thus we find a large range of masses, 1 TeV ≲ mχ≲ 50 TeV, and mass splitting of 100 keV ≲ δ≲ 500 keV can fit the data for a variety of possible dark matter velocity distributions. The models predict that some nuclear scattering events will be accompanied by a simultaneous photon signal with energy δ, which not only distinguishes this model from other inelastic dark matter explanations but also enables directional detection in conventional direct detection experiments. We briefly comment on the dark matter abundance, indirect detection signals (including the models' significantly weaker constraints from dark matter annihilation in the Sun), and the associated collider signals that arise from the meson sector of the theory.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{asadi2026whom,
title = {{For Whom the Xenon Recoils: Magnetic Inelastic Dark Baryons}},
author = {Pouya Asadi and Austin Batz and Patrick J. Fox and Samuel Homiller and Graham D. Kribs},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.09107},
eprint = {2609.09107},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09107},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - For Whom the Xenon Recoils: Magnetic Inelastic Dark Baryons
AU - Pouya Asadi
AU - Austin Batz
AU - Patrick J. Fox
AU - Samuel Homiller
AU - Graham D. Kribs
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.09107
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09107
AB - We develop a theory of a dark baryon dark matter candidate that interacts with nuclei dominantly through inelastic scattering mediated by a transition magnetic dipole operator. Models are presented that can elegantly explain both the scattering rate and the size of the inelastic splitting to be consistent with the one event observed at LZ\@. Elastic scattering is suppressed due to accidental symmetries within the strongly-coupled sector. The nuclear response is dominated by a spin-dependent structure factor, thus we find a large range of masses, 1 TeV ≲ m_χ≲ 50 TeV, and mass splitting of 100 keV ≲ δ≲ 500 keV can fit the data for a variety of possible dark matter velocity distributions. The models predict that some nuclear scattering events will be accompanied by a simultaneous photon signal with energy δ, which not only distinguishes this model from other inelastic dark matter explanations but also enables directional detection in conventional direct detection experiments. We briefly comment on the dark matter abundance, indirect detection signals (including the models' significantly weaker constraints from dark matter annihilation in the Sun), and the associated collider signals that arise from the meson sector of the theory.
SN - 2331-8422
ER -