7–9 May 2018
University of Pittsburgh
US/Eastern timezone

Reverse Direct Detection: Cosmic Ray Tests of Light Dark Matter Elastic Scattering

7 May 2018, 14:45
15m
G-31 (Benedum Hall)

G-31

Benedum Hall

parallel talk Dark Sector & ALPs

Speaker

Christopher Cappiello (Ohio State University)

Description

Many dark matter studies have considered indirect detection~($\chi\chi\rightarrow f f$), direct detection~($\chi f\rightarrow \chi f$), and collider searches~($f f\rightarrow \chi \chi$). We propose a new strategy in searching for dark matter elastic cross section by considering cosmic-ray propagation in the galactic dark matter halo. We find that cosmic rays can lose significant fraction of their energy through scattering with dark matter~($f \chi \rightarrow f \chi$). Using existing cosmic-ray data and a simple cosmic-ray propagation model, we study the qualitative effects of dark matter scattering on cosmic-ray propagation and obtain new constraints of dark matter elastic cross sections on light dark matter~(keV--GeV), a regime that is difficult for traditional direct detection experiments to probe.

Authors

Christopher Cappiello (Ohio State University) Kenny Chun Yu Ng (Weizmann Institute of Science) John Beacom (Ohio State University)

Presentation materials