DAUNTE: A Frozen Cross-Target Dark-Matter Interpretation of the LZ 248-keV Nuclear-Recoil Candidate

DAUNTE is a frozen, prospectively falsifiable dark-matter interpretation of the 248-keV nuclear-recoil candidate reported by the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment. The benchmark fixes a 1091 GeV dark-sector state, a 324 keV endothermic mass splitting, a neutron-philic spin-dependent O4 interaction, and a detector-frame maximum halo speed of 798 km/s. The framework treats the LZ event as the xenon-specific manifestation of a common underlying interaction and propagates the same frozen source across xenon, tungsten, lead, iodine, germanium, argon, and other targets using target-specific inelastic kinematics, finite-momentum nuclear response, and detector response. The public-data validation campaign includes LZ detector-response reconstruction, nuclear-recoil-band morphology, detector/halo/nuclear robustness scans, xenon holdouts, CRESST tungsten transfer, PICO iodine screening, finite-q rate calculations, background and likelihood diagnostics, and explicit correction and falsification ledgers. No detector-specific rescue retuning is permitted. Current status: the frozen DAUNTE benchmark remains compatible with the tested public datasets and has not been falsified, but it has only one positive empirical anchor—the LZ event—and therefore is not claimed as an independently confirmed dark-matter discovery. This release preserves the frozen prediction set, establishes a reproducible public record, and enables independent testing against future xenon, tungsten, lead, and other suitable target data.