Nucleon Consumption and Mass-Energy Conversion Induced by Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel dark matter detection scenario based on nucleon consumption, which overcomes energy thresholds and offers distinctive experimental signatures with potential for high sensitivity at major detectors.

Contribution

It proposes a new dark matter detection mechanism involving nucleon consumption, supported by models and effective operators, with unique experimental signatures and background suppression methods.

Findings

Proton and neutron consumption scenarios are feasible for dark matter detection.

Proton consumption yields richer signals with charged leptons and de-excitation signatures.

Projected sensitivities at major experiments like PandaX-4T, DUNE, JUNO, and Hyper-K are promising.

Abstract

We propose the nucleon consumption induced by dark matter (DM) as a new scenario to overcome the energy threshold of direct detection. It can be realized with proton ($\chi + p \rightarrow \chi + \ell^+$) or neutron ($\chi + n \rightarrow \chi + \nu$) target. Both effective operators and concrete models are provided to illustrate the idea. Since the initial DM and nucleon velocity is only $10^{-3}$ and $1/4$ of the speed of light, respectively, the cross section and hence event rate are determined by the involved particle masses and not affected by the nucleon Fermi motion. Of the two realizations, the proton consumption has richer phenomena with both charged lepton and the daughter nuclei de-excitation to allow double or even triple coincidence to significantly suppress the background. We also illustrate the projected sensitivities at DM and neutrino experiments such as PandaX-4T, DUNE, JUNO, and Hyper-K.