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Search for Light Dark Matter with 259 Days of Data in PandaX-4T

Minzhen Zhang1, Zihao Bo2, Wei Chen2, Xun Chen1,3,4, Yunhua Chen5,4, Chen Cheng6, Xiangyi Cui1, Manna Deng7, Yingjie Fan8 et al. (PandaX Collaboration)

Yingjie Fan8, Deqing Fang9, Xuanye Fu2, Zhixing Gao2, Yujie Ge7, Lisheng Geng6,10,11,12, Karl Giboni2,4, Xunan Guo6, Xuyuan Guo5,4, Zichao Guo6, Chencheng Han1, Ke Han2,3,4, Changda He2, Jinrong He5, Houqi Huang13, Junting Huang2,4, Yule Huang2, Ruquan Hou3,4, Xiangdong Ji14, Yonglin Ju15,4, Xiaorun Lan16, Chenxiang Li2, Jiafu Li17, Mingchuan Li5,4, Peiyuan Li2, Shuaijie Li5,2,4, Tao Li13, Yangdong Li2, Zhiyuan Li7, Qing Lin18,16,*, Jianglai Liu1,19,3,4,†, Yuanchun Liu2, Congcong Lu15, Xiaoying Lu20,21, Lingyin Luo22, Yunyang Luo16, Yugang Ma9, Yajun Mao22, Yue Meng2,3,4, Binyu Pang20,21, Ningchun Qi5,4, Zhicheng Qian2, Xiangxiang Ren20,21, Dong Shan23, Xiaofeng Shang2, Xiyuan Shao23, Guofang Shen6, Manbin Shen5,4, Wenliang Sun5,4, Xuyan Sun2, Yi Tao24, Yueqiang Tian6, Yuxin Tian2, Anqing Wang20,21, Guanbo Wang2, Hao Wang2, Haoyu Wang2, Jiamin Wang1, Lei Wang25, Meng Wang20,21, Qiuhong Wang9, Shaobo Wang2,13,4, Shibo Wang15, Siguang Wang22, Wei Wang7,17, Xu Wang1, Zhou Wang1,3,4, Yuehuan Wei7, Weihao Wu2,4,‡, Yuan Wu2, Mengjiao Xiao2, Xiang Xiao17, Kaizhi Xiong5,4, Jianqin Xu2, Yifan Xu15, Shunyu Yao13, Binbin Yan1, Xiyu Yan26, Yong Yang2,4, Peihua Ye2, Chunxu Yu23, Ying Yuan2, Zhe Yuan9, Youhui Yun2, Xinning Zeng2, Peng Zhang5,4, Shibo Zhang1, Siyuan Zhang17, Shu Zhang17, Tao Zhang1,3,4, Wei Zhang1, Yang Zhang20,21, Yingxin Zhang20,21, Yuanyuan Zhang1, Li Zhao1,3,4, Kangkang Zhao1, Jifang Zhou5,4, Jiaxu Zhou13, Jiayi Zhou1, Ning Zhou1,3,4,§, Xiaopeng Zhou6, Zhizhen Zhou2, and Chenhui Zhu16 (PandaX Collaboration)

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (MoE), Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201210, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (MoE), Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 3Shanghai Jiao Tong University Sichuan Research Institute, Chengdu 610213, China
  • 4Jinping Deep Underground Frontier Science and Dark Matter Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Liangshan 615000, China
  • 5Yalong River Hydropower Development Company, Limited, 288 Shuanglin Road, Chengdu 610051, China
  • 6School of Physics, Beihang University, Beijing 102206, China
  • 7Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
  • 8Department of Physics, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, China
  • 9Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Ion-beam Application (MOE), Institute of Modern Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • 10Peng Huanwu Collaborative Center for Research and Education, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
  • 11International Research Center for Nuclei and Particles in the Cosmos and Beijing Key Laboratory of Advanced Nuclear Materials and Physics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
  • 12Southern Center for Nuclear-Science Theory (SCNT), Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huizhou 516000, China
  • 13SJTU Paris Elite Institute of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 14Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
  • 15School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 16Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
  • 17School of Physics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
  • 18State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
  • 19New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201210, China
  • 20Research Center for Particle Science and Technology, Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
  • 21Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation of Ministry of Education, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
  • 22School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • 23School of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
  • 24School of Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen 518107, China
  • 25College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
  • 26School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China

  • *Contact author: qinglin@ustc.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: jianglai.liu@sjtu.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: wuweihao@sjtu.edu.cn
  • §Contact author: nzhou@sjtu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 211001 – Published 18 November, 2025Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 069901 (2026)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rtnh-jn8s

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·year for ionization-only data and 1.20  tonne·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 2.5–5.0  GeV/c2, spin-dependent neutron-only interactions within 1.0–5.6  GeV/c2, and spin-dependent proton-only interactions within 1.0–4.1  GeV/c2. Their corresponding limits at 3  GeV/c2 are 1.1×10−43, 8.4×10−40, and 2.8×10−38  cm2, 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/c2 to 10  GeV/c2, compared with previous best results. The improved limits reach 1.5×10−41 and 5.6×10−37  cm2 at 200  MeV/c2 for the heavy and light mediators, respectively.

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Erratum

Erratum: Search for Light Dark Matter with 259 Days of Data in PandaX-4T [Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 211001 (2025)]

Minzhen Zhang et al. (PandaX Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 069901 (2026)

Article Text

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 211001– Published 18 November, 2025
  • Received 16 July 2025
  • Accepted 6 October 2025
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