Analytic Approach to Light Dark Matter Propagation
Christopher V. Cappiello
Abstract
If dark matter interacts too strongly with nuclei, it could be slowed to undetectable speeds in Earth's crust or atmosphere before reaching a detector. For sub-GeV dark matter, approximations appropriate for heavier dark matter fail, necessitating the use of computationally expensive simulations. We present a new, analytic approximation for modeling attenuation of light dark matter in Earth. We show that our approach agrees well with Monte Carlo results, and can be much faster at large cross sections. We use this method to reanalyze constraints on subdominant dark matter.
Topics & Concepts
PhysicsDark matterMonte Carlo methodScalar field dark matterLight dark matterAttenuationAstrophysicsComputational physicsDark energyCosmologyOpticsMathematicsStatisticsDark Matter and Cosmic PhenomenaParticle physics theoretical and experimental studiesCosmology and Gravitation Theories