Detecting Stealth Dark Matter Directly through Electromagnetic Polarizability

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Detecting Stealth Dark Matter Directly through Electromagnetic Polarizability

T. Appelquist, E. Berkowitz, R. C. Brower, M. I. Buchoff, G. T. Fleming, X.-Y. Jin, J. Kiskis, G. D. Kribs, E. T. Neil, J. C. Osborn, C. Rebbi, E. Rinaldi, D. Schaich, C. Schroeder, S. Syritsyn, P. Vranas, E. Weinberg, and O. Witzel (Lattice Strong Dynamics (LSD) Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 171803 – Published 23 October 2015

Abstract

We calculate the spin-independent scattering cross section for direct detection that results from the electromagnetic polarizability of a composite scalar “stealth baryon” dark matter candidate, arising from a dark SU(4) confining gauge theory—“stealth dark matter.” In the nonrelativistic limit, electromagnetic polarizability proceeds through a dimension-7 interaction leading to a very small scattering cross section for dark matter with weak-scale masses. This represents a lower bound on the scattering cross section for composite dark matter theories with electromagnetically charged constituents. We carry out lattice calculations of the polarizability for the lightest “baryon” states in SU(3) and SU(4) gauge theories using the background field method on quenched configurations. We find the polarizabilities of SU(3) and SU(4) to be comparable (within about 50%) normalized to the stealth baryon mass, which is suggestive for extensions to larger SU( $N$ ) groups. The resulting scattering cross sections with a xenon target are shown to be potentially detectable in the dark matter mass range of about 200–700 GeV, where the lower bound is from the existing LUX constraint while the upper bound is the coherent neutrino background. Significant uncertainties in the cross section remain due to the more complicated interaction of the polarizablity operator with nuclear structure; however, the steep dependence on the dark matter mass, $1 / m_{B}^{6}$ , suggests the observable dark matter mass range is not appreciably modified. We briefly highlight collider searches for the mesons in the theory as well as the indirect astrophysical effects that may also provide excellent probes of stealth dark matter.

Received 30 May 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.171803

Authors & Affiliations

T. Appelquist¹, E. Berkowitz², R. C. Brower³, M. I. Buchoff⁴, G. T. Fleming¹, X.-Y. Jin⁵, J. Kiskis⁶, G. D. Kribs⁷, E. T. Neil^8,9, J. C. Osborn⁵, C. Rebbi³, E. Rinaldi², D. Schaich¹⁰, C. Schroeder², S. Syritsyn⁹, P. Vranas², E. Weinberg³, and O. Witzel^11,* (Lattice Strong Dynamics (LSD) Collaboration)

¹Department of Physics, Sloane Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
²Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA
³Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
⁴Institute for Nuclear Theory, Box 351550, Seattle, Washington 98195-1550, USA
⁵Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
⁶Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
⁷Department of Physics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA
⁸Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
⁹RIKEN-BNL Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
¹⁰Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA
¹¹Center for Computational Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA