Boosted Self-Interacting Dark Matter and XENON1T Excess

TL;DR

This paper proposes a self-interacting boosted dark matter model involving a dark U(1) gauge symmetry to explain the XENON1T electron recoil excess, addressing dark matter relic abundance, self-interactions, and experimental constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dark matter model with vector-like fermions and a light mediator, explaining the XENON1T excess and satisfying astrophysical and cosmological constraints.

Findings

Model fits XENON1T data with specific parameter space.

Dark matter self-interactions address small-scale structure issues.

Relic abundance achieved via hybrid freeze-out and decay mechanisms.

Abstract

We present a self-interacting boosted dark matter (DM) scenario as a possible explanation of the recently reported excess of electron recoil events by the XENON1T experiment. The Standard Model (SM) has been extended with two vector-like fermion singlets charged under a dark $U(1)_D$ gauge symmetry to describe the dark sector. While the presence of light vector boson mediator leads to sufficient DM self-interactions to address the small scale issues of cold dark matter, the model with sub-GeV scale DM can explain the XENON1T excess via elastic scattering of boosted DM component with electrons at the detector. Strong annihilation of DM into the light mediator leads to a suppressed thermal relic. A hybrid setup of dark freeze-out and non-thermal contribution from the late decay of a scalar can lead to correct relic abundance. We fit our model with XENON1T data and also find the final parameter space consistent with self-interaction of DM, DM-electron scattering rate, as well as astrophysical and cosmological observations. A tiny parameter space consistent with all these constraints and requirements can be further scrutinized in near-future experiments.