Exploring the dark matter inelastic frontier with 79.6 days of PandaX-II data

TL;DR

This paper reports on a search for inelastic dark matter scattering using 79.6 days of PandaX-II data, setting new upper limits on interaction cross sections for specific dark matter masses and mass splittings.

Contribution

First experimental search for inelastic dark matter scattering with nucleons using PandaX-II data, establishing upper limits up to 300 keV/c² mass splitting.

Findings

Set upper limits on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections

Analyzed data for dark matter masses of 1 and 10 TeV/c²

Constrained inelastic dark matter models with small mass splittings

Abstract

We report here the results of searching for inelastic scattering of dark matter (initial and final state dark matter particles differ by a small mass splitting) with nucleon with the first 79.6-day of PandaX-II data (Run 9). We set the upper limits for the spin independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section up to a mass splitting of 300 keV/c$^2$ at two benchmark dark matter masses of 1 and 10 TeV/c$^2$.