Description
After decades of not finding dark matter, we've gotten creative.
While liquid xenon detectors lead the direct search for 10-1000 GeV dark matter, sub-GeV dark matter particles from the local halo cannot transfer enough energy through nuclear scattering to be detected.
Blazars offer a solution. These supermassive black holes emit powerful particle jets directly toward Earth, and when dark matter from the blazar's host galaxy interacts with material in these relativistic jets, it gains sufficient kinetic energy to produce detectable recoils in xenon nuclei.
I will present the theoretical framework for blazar-boosted dark matter (BBDM) and report the first experimental constraints using XENONnT and LZ data.
We join the long tradition of not finding dark matter, but show that existing detectors can probe this new channel and constrain previously unexplored parameter space.
Notably, this project took nearly four years, which sets a record timescale for a collaboration with Paolo—well above his usual turnaround time (typically close to the speed of light when it comes to emails).