arXiv subjects

Stefan Clementz

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Clementz.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

The distribution of inelastic dark matter in the Sun

If dark matter is composed of new particles, these may become captured after scattering with nuclei in the Sun, thermalise through additional scattering, and finally annihilate into neutrinos that can be detected on Earth. If dark matter scatters inelastically into a slightly heavier ($\mathcal{O} (10-100)$ keV) state it is unclear whether thermalisation occurs. One issue is that up-scattering from the lower mass state may be kinematically forbidden, at which point the thermalisation process effectively stops. A larger evaporation rate is also expected due to down-scattering. In this work, we perform a numerical simulation of the capture and thermalisation process in order to study the evolution of the dark matter distribution. We then calculate and compare the annihilation rate with that of the often assumed Maxwell--Boltzmann distribution. We also check if equilibrium between capture and annihilation is reached and find that this assumption definitely breaks down in a part of the explored parameter space. We also find that evaporation induced by down-scattering is not effective in reducing the total dark matter abundance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Self-interacting inelastic dark matter: A viable solution to the small scale structure problems

Self-interacting dark matter has been proposed as a solution to the small-scale structure problems, such as the observed flat cores in dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. If scattering takes place through light mediators, the scattering cross section relevant to solve these problems may fall into the non-perturbative regime leading to a non-trivial velocity dependence, which allows compatibility with limits stemming from cluster-size objects. However, these models are strongly constrained by different observations, in particular from the requirements that the decay of the light mediator is sufficiently rapid (before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) and from direct detection. A natural solution to reconcile both requirements are inelastic endothermic interactions, such that scatterings in direct detection experiments are suppressed or even kinematically forbidden if the mass splitting between the two-states is sufficiently large. Using an exact solution when numerically solving the Schrödinger equation, we study such scenarios and find regions in the parameter space of dark matter and mediator masses, and the mass splitting of the states, where the small scale structure problems can be solved, the dark matter has the correct relic abundance and direct detection limits can be evaded.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Pinning down inelastic dark matter in the Sun and in direct detection

We study the solar capture rate of inelastic dark matter with endothermic and/or exothermic interactions. By assuming that an inelastic dark matter signal will be observed in next generation direct detection experiments we can set a lower bound on the capture rate that is independent of the local dark matter density, the velocity distribution, the galactic escape velocity as well as the scattering cross section. In combination with upper limits from neutrino observatories we can place upper bounds on the annihilation channels leading to neutrinos. We find that, while endothermic scattering limits are weak in the isospin-conserving case, strong bounds may be set for exothermic interactions, in particular in the spin-dependent case. Furthermore, we study the implications of observing two direct detection signals, in which case one can halo-independently obtain the dark matter mass and the mass splitting, and disentangle the endothermic/exothermic nature of the scattering. Finally we discuss isospin violation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Asymmetric capture of Dirac dark matter by the Sun

Current problems with the solar model may be alleviated if a significant amount of dark matter from the galactic halo is captured in the Sun. We discuss the capture process in the case where the dark matter is a Dirac fermion and the background halo consists of equal amounts of dark matter and anti-dark matter. By considering the case where dark matter and anti-dark matter have different cross sections on solar nuclei as well as the case where the capture process is considered to be a Poisson process, we find that a significant asymmetry between the captured dark particles and anti-particles is possible even for an annihilation cross section in the range expected for thermal relic dark matter. Since the captured number of particles are competitive with asymmetric dark matter models in a large range of parameter space, one may expect solar physics to be altered by the capture of Dirac dark matter. It is thus possible that solutions to the solar composition problem may be searched for in these type of models.

hep-ph↗