- 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

Dark matter boosted by terrestrial collisions

Zamiul Alam, Christopher V. Cappiello, and Francesc Ferrer

PDF

Phys. Rev. D 113, 123010 – Published 3 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qsqf-h21b

Abstract

Inelastic dark matter (IDM) models feature an energy threshold for scattering with Standard Model particles, which enables their consistency with the increasingly stringent limits placed by direct detection experiments. In a typical construction, elastic scattering is absent at tree level, and a lighter dark matter state must first upscatter into a heavier state in order to interact with the nuclei in the detector. We model the excitation of IDM in the Earth followed by its downscattering inside a detector, and we show that considering this process markedly enhances the sensitivity of existing detectors. In particular, current limits based on XENON100 and XENON1T data can be extended to significantly larger mass splittings.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (60)

  1. S. Navas et al. (Particle Data Group), Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024).
  2. G. Bertone and D. Hooper, Rev. Mod. Phys. 90, 045002 (2018).
  3. M. Schumann, J. Phys. G 46, 103003 (2019).
  4. T. Lin, Proc. Sci., 333 (2019) 009 [arXiv:1904.07915].
  5. J. Cooley et al., arXiv:2209.07426.
  6. M. Battaglieri et al., in U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter (2017), arXiv:1707.04591.
  7. R. K. Leane, T. R. Slatyer, J. F. Beacom, and K. C. Y. Ng, Phys. Rev. D 98, 023016 (2018).
  8. D. S. Akerib et al., in Snowmass 2021 (2022), arXiv:2203.08084.
  9. Y. Kahn and T. Lin, Rep. Prog. Phys. 85, 066901 (2022).
  10. C. B. Adams et al., in Snowmass 2021 (2022), arXiv:2203.14923.
  11. A. Mitridate, T. Trickle, Z. Zhang, and K. M. Zurek, Phys. Dark Universe 40, 101221 (2023).
  12. K. M. Zurek, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 74, 287 (2024).
  13. B. Carr and F. Kuhnel, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 70, 355 (2020).
  14. A. M. Green and B. J. Kavanagh, J. Phys. G 48, 043001 (2021).
  15. C. Blanco, B. Elshimy, R. F. Lang, and R. Orlando, Phys. Rev. D 105, 115031 (2022).
  16. D. Carney et al., SciPost Phys. Core 6, 075 (2023).
  17. L. J. Hall, T. Moroi, and H. Murayama, Phys. Lett. B 424, 305 (1998).
  18. D. Tucker-Smith and N. Weiner, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043502 (2001).
  19. D. Tucker-Smith and N. Weiner, Phys. Rev. D 72, 063509 (2005).
  20. C. Arina and N. Fornengo, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2007) 029.
  21. Y. Cui, D. E. Morrissey, D. Poland, and L. Randall, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2009) 076.
  22. B. Feldstein, P. W. Graham, and S. Rajendran, Phys. Rev. D 82, 075019 (2010).
  23. P. J. Fox, G. D. Kribs, and T. M. P. Tait, Phys. Rev. D 83, 034007 (2011).
  24. H. An, P. S. B. Dev, Y. Cai, and R. N. Mohapatra, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 081806 (2012).
  25. M. Pospelov, N. Weiner, and I. Yavin, Phys. Rev. D 89, 055008 (2014).
  26. K. R. Dienes, J. Kumar, B. Thomas, and D. Yaylali, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 051301 (2015).
  27. G. Barello, S. Chang, and C. A. Newby, Phys. Rev. D 90, 094027 (2014).
  28. J. Eby, P. J. Fox, R. Harnik, and G. D. Kribs, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2019) 115.
  29. M. Baryakhtar, A. Berlin, H. Liu, and N. Weiner, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2022) 047.
  30. N. F. Bell, J. B. Dent, B. Dutta, S. Ghosh, J. Kumar, and J. L. Newstead, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 161803 (2020).
  31. K. Harigaya, Y. Nakai, and M. Suzuki, Phys. Lett. B 809, 135729 (2020).
  32. N. F. Bell, J. B. Dent, B. Dutta, S. Ghosh, J. Kumar, J. L. Newstead, and I. M. Shoemaker, Phys. Rev. D 104, 076020 (2021).
  33. T. Emken, J. Frerick, S. Heeba, and F. Kahlhoefer, Phys. Rev. D 105, 055023 (2022).
  34. D. S. M. Alves, S. R. Elliott, R. Massarczyk, S. J. Meijer, and H. Ramani, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 141801 (2023).
  35. J. Eby, P. J. Fox, and G. D. Kribs, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2024) 165.
  36. P. W. Graham, H. Ramani, and S. S. Y. Wong, Phys. Rev. D 111, 055030 (2025).
  37. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 111302 (2018).
  38. E. Aprile et al. (XENON Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 96, 042004 (2017).
  39. J. Bramante, P. J. Fox, G. D. Kribs, and A. Martin, Phys. Rev. D 94, 115026 (2016).
  40. N. Song, S. Nagorny, and A. C. Vincent, Phys. Rev. D 104, 103032 (2021).
  41. A. K. Drukier, K. Freese, and D. N. Spergel, Phys. Rev. D 33, 3495 (1986).
  42. N. W. Evans, C. A. J. O’Hare, and C. McCabe, Phys. Rev. D 99, 023012 (2019).
  43. G. Besla, A. Peter, and N. Garavito-Camargo, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 11 (2019) 013.
  44. C. Roche, L. Necib, T. Lin, X. Ou, and T. Nguyen, Astrophys. J. 972, 70 (2024).
  45. L. Necib, M. Lisanti, and V. Belokurov, Astrophys. J. 874, 3 (2019).
  46. A. Smith-Orlik et al., J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2023) 070.
  47. R. H. Helm, Phys. Rev. 104, 1466 (1956).
  48. G. Duda, A. Kemper, and P. Gondolo, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2007) 012.
  49. R. L. Rudnick and S. Gao, Treatise Geochem. 3, 659 (2003).
  50. H. Palme and H. S. C. O’Neill, Treatise Geochem. 2, 568 (2003).
  51. B. Lehnert, H. Ramani, M. Hult, G. Lutter, M. Pospelov, S. Rajendran, and K. Zuber, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 181802 (2020).
  52. C. Amole et al. (PICO Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 93, 052014 (2016).
  53. G. Angloher et al. (CRESST Collaboration), Eur. Phys. J. C 76, 25 (2016).
  54. E. Adams et al. (PICO Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 108, 062003 (2023).
  55. J. F. Acevedo, A. J. Reilly, and L. Santos-Olmsted, arXiv:2510.01320.
  56. P. F. de Salas, K. Malhan, K. Freese, K. Hattori, and M. Valluri, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2019) 037.
  57. A. Hussein, L. Necib, M. Kaplinghat, S. Y. Kim, A. Wetzel, J. I. Read, M. P. Rey, and O. Agertz, arXiv:2501.14868.
  58. W. F. McDonough, Treatise Geochem. 2, 568 (2003).
  59. X. Ou, A.-C. Eilers, L. Necib, and A. Frebel, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 528, 693 (2024).
  60. https://github.com/ccapp413/Inelastic-Dark-Matter-Upscattering/.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 113, 123010– Published 3 June, 2026
  • Received 21 December 2025
  • Accepted 8 May 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