Boosted dark matter from a phantom fluid

TL;DR

The paper proposes that vacuum decay in phantom dark energy models can produce boosted dark matter or radiation, which could be detected directly, and uses experimental data to constrain these models and explain recent excess events.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism where vacuum decay in phantom dark energy models generates boosted dark matter or radiation, linking cosmological theory with direct detection experiments.

Findings

Constraints on vacuum decay models from XENONnT data

Explanation of DAMIC excess events as dark radiation from vacuum decay

Potential new detection channel for dark matter related to phantom energy

Abstract

It is known that theories of phantom dark energy, considered as quantum fields, predict a continuous production of positive- plus negative-energy particles, from spontaneous decay of the vacuum. We show that this can be a new source of boosted dark matter or radiation, with consequences for direct detection. We set constraints on such models using data from the XENONnT experiment, and we show that recent excess events reported by the DAMIC experiment can be consistently described as coming from dark radiation, produced by vacuum decay, interacting with electrons.