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arXiv · 2507.11930

Search for Light Dark Matter with 259-day data in PandaX-4T

Abstract

We present a search for light dark matter particles through their interactions with atomic electrons and nucleons, utilizing PandaX-4T data with an effective exposure of 1.04 tonne$\cdot$year for ionization-only data and 1.20 tonne$\cdot$year for paired data. Our analysis focuses on the energy range (efficiency$>$0.01) of approximately 0.33 to 3 keV for nuclear recoils, and from 0.04 to 0.39 keV for electronic recoils. We establish the most stringent constraints on spin-independent dark matter-nucleon interactions within a mass range of 2.5 to 5.0 GeV/$c^2$, spin-dependent neutron-only interactions within 2.0 to 5.3 GeV/$c^2$, and spin-dependent proton-only interactions within 2.0 to 3.8 GeV/$c^2$. Their corresponding limits at 3\,GeV/$c^2$ are $1.1 \times 10^{-43}$, $1.6 \times 10^{-38}$, and $5.6 \times 10^{-37}$\,cm$^2$, respectively. Additionally, our results improve the upper limits on the dark matter-electron scattering cross-section by a factor of 1.5 and 9.3 for heavy and light mediator scenarios respectively within 50 MeV/$c^2$ to 10 GeV/$c^2$, compared with previous best results.

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Minzhen Zhang, Zihao Bo, Wei Chen, Xun Chen, Yunhua Chen, Chen Cheng, Xiangyi Cui, Manna Deng, Yingjie Fan, Deqing Fang, Xuanye Fu, Zhixing Gao, Yujie Ge, Lisheng Geng, Karl Giboni, Xunan Guo, Xuyuan Guo, Zichao Guo, Chencheng Han, Ke Han, Changda He, Jinrong He, Houqi Huang, Junting Huang, Yule Huang, Ruquan Hou, Xiangdong Ji, Yonglin Ju, Xiaorun Lan, Chenxiang Li, Jiafu Li, Mingchuan Li, Peiyuan Li, Shuaijie Li, Tao Li, Yangdong Li, Zhiyuan Li, Qing Lin, Jianglai Liu, Yuanchun Liu, Congcong Lu, Xiaoying Lu, Lingyin Luo, Yunyang Luo, Yugang Ma, Yajun Mao, Yue Meng, Binyu Pang, Ningchun Qi, Zhicheng Qian, Xiangxiang Ren, Dong Shan, Xiaofeng Shang, Xiyuan Shao, Guofang Shen, Manbin Shen, Wenliang Sun, Xuyan Sun, Yi Tao, Yueqiang Tian, Yuxin Tian, Anqing Wang, Guanbo Wang, Hao Wang, Haoyu Wang, Jiamin Wang, Lei Wang, Meng Wang, Qiuhong Wang, Shaobo Wang, Shibo Wang, Siguang Wang, Wei Wang, Xu Wang, Zhou Wang, Yuehuan Wei, Weihao Wu, Yuan Wu, Mengjiao Xiao, Xiang Xiao, Kaizhi Xiong, Jianqin Xu, Yifan Xu, Shunyu Yao, Binbin Yan, Xiyu Yan, Yong Yang, Peihua Ye, Chunxu Yu, Ying Yuan, Zhe Yuan, Youhui Yun, Xinning Zeng, Peng Zhang, Shibo Zhang, Siyuan Zhang, Shu Zhang, Tao Zhang, Wei Zhang, Yang Zhang. 2025-07-16. Search for Light Dark Matter with 259-day data in PandaX-4T. https://doi.org/10.1103/rtnh-jn8s

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