Nucleon consumption and mass-energy conversion induced by dark matter

We propose the nucleon consumption induced by dark matter (DM) as a new scenario to overcome the energy threshold of direct detection. It can be realized with proton (<a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mi>χ</a:mi><a:mo>+</a:mo><a:mi>p</a:mi><a:mo stretchy="false">→</a:mo><a:mi>χ</a:mi><a:mo>+</a:mo><a:msup><a:mo>ℓ</a:mo><a:mo>+</a:mo></a:msup></a:math>) or neutron (<d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><d:mi>χ</d:mi><d:mo>+</d:mo><d:mi>n</d:mi><d:mo stretchy="false">→</d:mo><d:mi>χ</d:mi><d:mo>+</d:mo><d:mi>ν</d:mi></d:math>) target. Both effective operators and concrete models are provided to illustrate the idea. Since the initial DM and nucleon velocity is only <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><g:msup><g:mn>10</g:mn><g:mrow><g:mo>−</g:mo><g:mn>3</g:mn></g:mrow></g:msup></g:math> and <i:math xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><i:mn>1</i:mn><i:mo>/</i:mo><i:mn>4</i:mn></i:math> of the speed of light, respectively, the cross section and hence event rate are determined by the involved particle masses and not affected by the nucleon Fermi motion. Of the two realizations, the proton consumption has richer phenomena with both charged lepton and the daughter nuclei deexcitation to allow double or even triple coincidence to significantly suppress the background. We also illustrate the projected sensitivities at DM and neutrino experiments such as PandaX-4T, DUNE, JUNO, and Hyper-K. Published by the American Physical Society 2024