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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Optimal antiferromagnets for light dark matter detection

Angelo Esposito1,2,3,* and Shashin Pavaskar4,†

  • 1Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy
  • 2INFN Sezione di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185 Rome, Italy
  • 3School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA

  • *angelo.esposito@uniroma1.it
  • †spavaska@andrew.cmu.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 108, L011901 – Published 19 July, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.L011901

Abstract

We propose antiferromagnets as optimal targets to hunt for sub-MeV dark matter with spin-dependent interactions. These materials allow for multimagnon emission even for very small momentum transfers and are therefore sensitive to dark matter particles as light as the keV. We use an effective theory to compute the event rates in a simple way. Among the materials studied here, we identify nickel oxide (a well-assessed antiferromagnet) as an ideal candidate target. Indeed, the propagation speed of its gapless magnons is very close to the typical dark matter velocity, allowing the absorption of all its kinetic energy, even through the emission of just a single magnon.

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Phys. Rev. D 108, L011901– Published 19 July, 2023
  • Received 6 November 2022
  • Accepted 30 June 2023
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