Exclusion limits on Dark Matter-Neutrino Scattering Cross-section

TL;DR

This paper establishes new constraints on dark matter interactions with electrons and neutrinos by analyzing cosmic ray and supernova neutrino backgrounds, using data from XENON1T and Super-Kamiokande, highlighting the latter's strength in constraining neutrino interactions for low-mass dark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to constrain dark matter-neutrino cross-sections using cosmic ray and supernova neutrino backgrounds, with the strongest bounds for low-mass dark matter from Super-Kamiokande.

Findings

Super-Kamiokande provides the strongest constraints on dark matter-neutrino cross-section for masses below a few MeV.

Constraints on dark matter-electron cross-section are comparable to existing literature.

Neutrino scattering can significantly boost low-mass dark matter via cosmic ray and supernova neutrino backgrounds.

Abstract

We derive new constraints on combination of dark matter - electron cross-section ($\sigma_{\chi e}$) and dark matter - neutrino cross-section ($\sigma_{\chi \nu}$) utilising the gain in kinetic energy of the dark matter (DM) particles due to scattering with the cosmic ray electrons and the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Since the flux of the DSNB neutrinos is comparable to the CR electron flux in the energy range $\sim 1\,{\rm MeV} - 50 \,{\rm MeV}$, scattering with the DSNB neutrinos can also boost low-mass DM significantly in addition to the boost due to interaction with the cosmic ray electrons. We use the XENON1T as well as the Super-Kamiokande data to derive bounds on $\sigma_{\chi e}$ and $\sigma_{\chi \nu}$. While our bounds for $\sigma_{\chi e}$ are comparable with those in the literature, we show that the Super-Kamiokande experiment provides the strongest constraint on $\sigma_{\chi \nu}$ for DM masses below a few MeV.