Detecting meV-Scale Dark Matter via Coherent Scattering with an Asymmetric Torsion Balance

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel torsion balance experiment to detect meV-scale dark matter through coherent scattering, significantly improving constraints on dark matter-nucleon interactions in a previously unexplored mass range.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental approach using asymmetric torsion balances to detect coherent dark matter scattering in the meV to eV mass range.

Findings

Provides the strongest constraints on dark matter-nucleon cross-section in the (10^{-3}, 1) eV mass range.

Demonstrates the potential of macroscopic torsion balances for dark matter detection.

Highlights the enhancement of acceleration signals by a factor of 10^{23} due to coherent scattering.

Abstract

Dark matter with mass in the crossover range between wave dark matter and particle dark matter, around $(10^{-3},\, 10^3)\,$eV, remains relatively unexplored by terrestrial experiments. In this mass regime, dark matter scatters coherently with macroscopic objects. The effect of the coherent scattering greatly enhances the accelerations of the targets that the dark matter collisions cause by a factor of $\sim 10^{23}$. We propose a novel torsion balance experiment with test bodies of different geometric sizes to detect such dark matter-induced acceleration. This method provides the strongest constraints on the scattering cross-section between the dark matter and a nucleon in the mass range $(10^{-3}, 1)\,$eV.