Analytic Approach to Light Dark Matter Propagation

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.

Automated summary

If dark matter interacts too strongly with nuclei, it may become undetectable due to slowing down in Earth's crust or atmosphere. For sub-GeV dark matter, existing approximations are insufficient and computationally expensive simulations are needed. The authors propose a new analytic approximation method for studying the attenuation of light dark matter in Earth, which agrees well with Monte Carlo results and is more efficient for higher cross-sections. They use this method to reanalyze constraints on subdominant dark matter.