Nucleus Capture by Macroscopic Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dense, macroscopic dark matter can capture nuclei, producing detectable photon signals, and explores the potential for large neutrino detectors to identify such events for dark matter masses up to one gram.

Contribution

It provides analytic formulas and numerical results for nucleus capture by macroscopic dark matter, highlighting detection prospects in large neutrino experiments.

Findings

Neutrino detectors can potentially detect dark matter via radiative capture signals.

The study offers formulas applicable in the low energy, non-dipole limit.

Detection sensitivity extends to dark matter masses up to one gram.

Abstract

For a class of macroscopic dark matter with a large interaction strength with Standard Model particles, a nucleus could be captured by the dense, heavy dark matter as it traverses ordinary material. The radiated photon carries most of the binding energy and is a characteristic signature for dark matter detection. We develop analytic formulas and present numerical results for this radiative capture process in the low energy, non-dipole limit. Large-volume neutrino detectors like NO$\nu$A, JUNO, DUNE and Super(Hyper)-K may detect multi-hit or single-hit radiative capture events and can search for dark matter up to one gram in mass.