- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Paleodetector bounds on cosmic-ray-boosted dark matter

Jin-Wei Wang* and Fei-Fei Li

  • *Contact author: jinwei.wang@uestc.edu.cn
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 114, 075006 – Published 7 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1hbk-n9sq

Abstract

We present the first dedicated analysis of cosmic-ray boosted dark matter (CRDM) in paleodetectors. Owing to their large kinetic energies, CRDM particles generate nuclear-recoil tracks that extend to substantially larger lengths than those produced by dominant backgrounds from neutrinos and intrinsic radioactivity. Combined with the ultralarge effective geological exposure of O(105)  t yr, paleodetectors provide high sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter (DM). Considering both constant and vector-mediator interactions, we find that paleodetectors improve the sensitivity to the DM-proton scattering cross section by one to two orders of magnitude compared with the latest XENONnT limits.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (72)

  1. Gianfranco Bertone, Dan Hooper, and Joseph Silk, Particle dark matter: Evidence, candidates and constraints, Phys. Rep. 405, 279 (2005).
  2. Marco Taoso, Gianfranco Bertone, and Antonio Masiero, Dark matter candidates: A ten-point test, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2008) 022.
  3. Gianfranco Bertone and Dan Hooper, History of dark matter, Rev. Mod. Phys. 90, 045002 (2018).
  4. N. Aghanim et al. (Planck Collaboration), Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters, Astron. Astrophys. 641, A6 (2020); 652, C4(E) (2021).
  5. A. Arbey and F. Mahmoudi, Dark matter and the early Universe: A review, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 119, 103865 (2021).
  6. Marco Cirelli, Alessandro Strumia, and Jure Zupan, Dark matter, arXiv:2406.01705.
  7. D. S. Akerib et al. (LZ Collaboration), LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) conceptual design report, arXiv:1509.02910.
  8. D. S. Akerib et al. (LZ Collaboration), Projected WIMP sensitivity of the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter experiment, Phys. Rev. D 101, 052002 (2020).
  9. J. Aalbers et al. (LZ Collaboration), First dark matter search results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 041002 (2023).
  10. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), Search for new physics in electronic recoil data from XENONnT, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 161805 (2022).
  11. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), First dark matter search with nuclear recoils from the XENONnT experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 041003 (2023).
  12. Hongguang Zhang et al. (PandaX Collaboration), Dark matter direct search sensitivity of the PandaX-4T experiment, Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 62, 31011 (2019).
  13. Yue Meng et al. (PandaX-4T Collaboration), Dark matter search results from the PandaX-4T commissioning run, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 261802 (2021).
  14. Kaustubh Agashe, Yanou Cui, Lina Necib, and Jesse Thaler, (in)direct detection of boosted dark matter, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2014) 062.
  15. Chris Kouvaris, Probing light dark matter via evaporation from the Sun, Phys. Rev. D 92, 075001 (2015).
  16. Haipeng An, Maxim Pospelov, Josef Pradler, and Adam Ritz, Directly detecting MeV-scale dark matter via solar reflection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 141801 (2018).
  17. Timon Emken, Chris Kouvaris, and Niklas Grønlund Nielsen, The Sun as a sub-GeV dark matter accelerator, Phys. Rev. D 97, 063007 (2018).
  18. Torsten Bringmann and Maxim Pospelov, Novel direct detection constraints on light dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 171801 (2019).
  19. Jin-Wei Wang, Alessandro Granelli, and Piero Ullio, Direct detection constraints on blazar-boosted dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 221104 (2022).
  20. Alessandro Granelli, Piero Ullio, and Jin-Wei Wang, Blazar-boosted dark matter at Super-Kamiokande, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2022) 013.
  21. D. P. Snowden-Ifft, E. S. Freeman, and P. B. Price, Limits on dark matter using ancient mica, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4133 (1995).
  22. Sebastian Baum, Andrzej K. Drukier, Katherine Freese, Maciej Górski, and Patrick Stengel, Searching for dark matter with Paleo-detectors, Phys. Lett. B 803, 135325 (2020).
  23. Andrzej K. Drukier, Sebastian Baum, Katherine Freese, Maciej Górski, and Patrick Stengel, Paleo-detectors: Searching for dark matter with ancient minerals, Phys. Rev. D 99, 043014 (2019).
  24. Thomas D. P. Edwards, Bradley J. Kavanagh, Christoph Weniger, Sebastian Baum, Andrzej K. Drukier, Katherine Freese, Maciej Górski, and Patrick Stengel, Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors, Phys. Rev. D 99, 043541 (2019).
  25. Sebastian Baum, Thomas D. P. Edwards, Katherine Freese, and Patrick Stengel, New projections for dark matter searches with paleo-detectors, Instruments 5, 21 (2021).
  26. Sebastian Baum, William DeRocco, Thomas D. P. Edwards, and Saarik Kalia, Galactic geology: Probing time-varying dark matter signals with paleodetectors, Phys. Rev. D 104, 123015 (2021).
  27. Joseph Bramante, Bradley J. Kavanagh, and Nirmal Raj, Scattering searches for dark matter in subhalos: Neutron stars, cosmic rays, and old rocks, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 231801 (2022).
  28. Sebastian Baum et al., Mineral detection of neutrinos and dark matter. A whitepaper, Phys. Dark Universe 41, 101245 (2023).
  29. Audrey Fung, Thalles Lucas, Levente Balogh, Matthew Leybourne, and Aaron C. Vincent, Refining the sensitivity of new physics searches with ancient minerals, Phys. Rev. D 112, 043040 (2025).
  30. Sebastian Baum, Thomas D. P. Edwards, Bradley J. Kavanagh, Patrick Stengel, Andrzej K. Drukier, Katherine Freese, Maciej Górski, and Christoph Weniger, Paleodetectors for Galactic supernova neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 101, 103017 (2020).
  31. Johnathon R. Jordan, Sebastian Baum, Patrick Stengel, Alfredo Ferrari, Maria Cristina Morone, Paola Sala, and Joshua Spitz, Measuring changes in the atmospheric neutrino rate over gigayear timescales, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 231802 (2020).
  32. Natalia Tapia-Arellano and Shunsaku Horiuchi, Measuring solar neutrinos over gigayear timescales with paleo detectors, Phys. Rev. D 103, 123016 (2021).
  33. Sebastian Baum, Francesco Capozzi, and Shunsaku Horiuchi, Rocks, water, and noble liquids: Unfolding the flavor contents of supernova neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 106, 123008 (2022).
  34. Gang Guo, Yue-Lin Sming Tsai, Meng-Ru Wu, and Qiang Yuan, Elastic and inelastic scattering of cosmic-rays on sub-GeV dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 102, 103004 (2020).
  35. Liangliang Su, Lei Wu, and Bin Zhu, An improved bound on accelerated light dark matter, Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 67, 221012 (2024).
  36. Jin-Wei Wang, Blazar-boosted dark matter: Novel signatures via elastic and inelastic scattering, Phys. Rev. D 112, 055004 (2025).
  37. Andrea Giovanni De Marchi, Alessandro Granelli, Jacopo Nava, and Filippo Sala, Did IceCube discover dark matter around Blazars?, Phys. Rev. D 112, 043042 (2025).
  38. Liangliang Su, Lei Wu, Ning Zhou, and Bin Zhu, Accelerated-light-dark-matter–Earth inelastic scattering in direct detection, Phys. Rev. D 108, 035004 (2023).
  39. Andrea Giovanni De Marchi, Alessandro Granelli, Jacopo Nava, and Filippo Sala, Boosted dark matter versus dark matter-induced neutrinos from single and stacked blazars, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2025) 136.
  40. Andrea Giovanni De Marchi, Alessandro Granelli, Jacopo Nava, and Filippo Sala, Diffuse astrophysical neutrinos from dark matter around blazars, Phys. Lett. B 871, 140015 (2025).
  41. M. J. Boschini et al., Inference of the local interstellar spectra of cosmic-ray nuclei Z≤28 with the GalProp–HelMod framework, Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 250, 27 (2020).
  42. A. C. Cummings, E. C. Stone, B. C. Heikkila, N. Lal, W. R. Webber, G. Jóhannesson, I. V. Moskalenko, E. Orlando, and T. A. Porter, Galactic cosmic rays in the local interstellar medium: Voyager 1 observations and model results, Astrophys. J. 831, 18 (2016).
  43. M. Aguilar et al. (AMS Collaboration), Properties of neon, magnesium, and silicon primary cosmic rays results from the alpha magnetic spectrometer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 211102 (2020).

  44. The astrophysical uncertainties associated with CRDM production, including CR propagation, the spatial distribution of CR sources, and the Galactic DM profile, are effectively encoded in the parameter Deff [45]. Depending on mχ and Tχ, Deff typically varies between ∼6  kpc and ∼10  kpc, while different DM halo profiles modify it at the level of approximately 10% [45]. The NFW profile adopted in this work yields the most conservative CRDM flux. Since the CRDM flux scales linearly with Deff, the projected sensitivity approximately scales as σχp∝1/Deff. For the light and high-energy CRDM considered in this work, we adopt Deff=9  kpc as a benchmark value following Ref. [45].

  45. Chen Xia, Yan-Hao Xu, and Yu-Feng Zhou, Production and attenuation of cosmic-ray boosted dark matter, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 02 (2022) 028.
  46. I. Angeli, A consistent set of nuclear rms charge radii: Properties of the radius surface R(N,Z), At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 87, 185 (2004).
  47. Richard H. Helm, Inelastic and elastic scattering of 187-mev electrons from selected even-even nuclei, Phys. Rev. 104, 1466 (1956).
  48. J. D. Lewin and P. F. Smith, Review of mathematics, numerical factors, and corrections for dark matter experiments based on elastic nuclear recoil, Astropart. Phys. 6, 87 (1996).
  49. Andy Buckley, James Ferrando, Stephen Lloyd, Karl Nordström, Ben Page, Martin Rüfenacht, Marek Schönherr, and Graeme Watt, LHAPDF6: Parton density access in the LHC precision era, Eur. Phys. J. C 75, 132 (2015).
  50. Rabah Abdul Khalek, Rhorry Gauld, Tommaso Giani, Emanuele R. Nocera, Tanjona R. Rabemananjara, and Juan Rojo, nNNPDF3.0: Evidence for a modified partonic structure in heavy nuclei, Eur. Phys. J. C 82, 507 (2022).
  51. S. Navas et al. (Particle Data Group), Review of particle physics, Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024).
  52. Joshua Berger, A module for boosted dark matter event generation in GENIE, arXiv:1812.05616.
  53. A. D. Martin, W. J. Stirling, R. S. Thorne, and G. Watt, Parton distributions for the LHC, Eur. Phys. J. C 63, 189 (2009).
  54. K. Kovarik et al., nCTEQ15—Global analysis of nuclear parton distributions with uncertainties in the CTEQ framework, Phys. Rev. D 93, 085037 (2016).
  55. Kari J. Eskola, Petja Paakkinen, Hannu Paukkunen, and Carlos A. Salgado, EPPS16: Nuclear parton distributions with LHC data, Eur. Phys. J. C 77, 163 (2017).
  56. J. P. Biersack and J. F. Ziegler, The stopping and range of ions in solids, in: Ion Implantation Techniques, edited by Heiner Ryssel and Hans Glawischnig (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1982), pp. 122–156.
  57. James F. Ziegler, M. D. Ziegler, and J. P. Biersack, SRIM—The stopping and range of ions in matter, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. B 268, 1818 (2010).
  58. M. Holler, A. Diaz, M. Guizar-Sicairos, P. Karvinen, E. Färm, E. Härkönen, M. Ritala, A. Menzel, J. Raabe, and O. Bunk, X-ray ptychographic computed tomography at 16 nm isotropic 3D resolution, Sci. Rep. 4, 3857 (2014).
  59. M. D. Rodriguez, W. X. Li, F. Chen, C. Trautmann, T. Bierschenk, B. Afra, D. Schauries, R. C. Ewing, S. T. Mudie, and P. Kluth, SAXS and TEM investigation of ion tracks in neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. B 326, 150 (2014).
  60. Florian Schaff, Martin Bech, Paul Zaslansky, Christoph Jud, Marianne Liebi, Manuel Guizar-Sicairos, and Franz Pfeiffer, Six-dimensional real and reciprocal space small-angle X-ray scattering tomography, Nature (London) 527, 353 (2015).
  61. Andrew Calabrese-Day, Emilie LaVoie-Ingram, Kathryn Ream, Hannah Ross, Joshua Spitz, Patrick Stengel, Kai Sun, and Alexander Takla, Toward neutrino and dark matter detection with ancient minerals: TEM study of heavy-ion tracks in olivine, arXiv:2604.09732.
  62. Ciaran A. J. O’Hare, Can we overcome the neutrino floor at high masses?, Phys. Rev. D 102, 063024 (2020).
  63. Juan I. Collar, Comments on ’limits on dark matter using ancient mica’, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 331 (1996).
  64. D. P. Snowden-Ifft, E. S. Freeman, and P. B. Price, Snowden-Ifft, Freemen, and Price reply (A Reply to the Comment by Juan I Collar), Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 332 (1996).
  65. S. Demouchy, Defects in olivine, Eur. J. Mineral. 33, 249 (2021).
  66. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), WIMP dark matter search using a 3.1 Tonne-Year exposure of the XENONnT experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 221003 (2025).
  67. P. A. Zyla et al. (Particle Data Group), Review of particle physics, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2020, 083C01 (2020).
  68. K. Abe et al. (Super-Kamiokande Collaboration), Search for cosmic-ray boosted sub-GeV dark matter using recoil protons at Super-Kamiokande, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 031802 (2023); 131, 159903(E) (2023).
  69. J. Aalbers et al. (LZ Collaboration), New constraints on cosmic ray-boosted dark matter from the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 241801 (2025).
  70. Di Huang et al. (PandaX Collaboration), Search for dark-matter–nucleon interactions with a dark mediator in PandaX-4T, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 191002 (2023).
  71. Prakruth Adari et al. (SENSEI Collaboration), First direct-detection results on sub-GeV dark matter using the SENSEI detector at SNOLAB, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 011804 (2025).
  72. Cara Giovanetti, Mariangela Lisanti, Hongwan Liu, and Joshua T. Ruderman, Joint cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis constraints on light dark sectors with dark radiation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 021302 (2022).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, 075006– Published 7 October, 2026
  • Received 22 January 2026
  • Revised 24 May 2026
  • Accepted 21 September 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation