Searching for Secluded Dark Matter via Direct Detection of Recoiling Nuclei as well as Low Energy Electrons

TL;DR

This paper explores detecting secluded dark matter through low energy electron recoils in direct detection experiments, highlighting significant event rates and modulation effects, especially with a massless mediator, offering a new detection avenue.

Contribution

It introduces novel direct detection methods focusing on low energy electrons for secluded dark matter, considering various gauge boson mixing scenarios.

Findings

High event rates for electron recoils in certain scenarios

Significant time modulation effects observed

Complementary detection signals to nuclear recoils

Abstract

Motivated by recent cosmic ray experimental results there has been a proposition for a scenario where a secluded dark matter particle annihilates, primarily, into Standard Model leptons through a low mass mediator particle. We consider several varieties of this scenario depending on the type of mixing among gauge bosons and we study the implications in novel direct dark matter experiments for detecting low energy recoiling electrons. We find significant event rates and time modulation effects, especially in the case where the mediator is massless, that may be complementary to those from recoiling nuclei.