16–19 Jun 2025
Dipartimento di Fisica
Europe/Brussels timezone

Celestial objects as Leptophilic dark matter detectors

19 Jun 2025, 16:35
15m
Aula C (Dipartimento di Fisica)

Aula C

Dipartimento di Fisica

Via Pietro Giuria 1 10100 Torino

Speaker

Thong T. Q. Nguyen (Stockholm University, OKC)

Description

With their large exposures from the heaven, celestial objects serve as natural dark matter detectors. For leptophilic dark matter, interactions with electrons inside these objects can lead to energy loss, allowing dark matter to become gravitationally bound. Using the Sun and observations by Super-Kamiokande, we set world-leading constraints on the dark matter–electron scattering cross section for dark matter masses above 4 GeV. For sub-GeV dark matter, we propose a novel approach by considering Jupiter as a capture target. This leads to the strongest existing constraints on sub-GeV leptophilic dark matter, probing a significant portion of the theoretically motivated parameter space in a class of hidden sector models.

Author

Thong T. Q. Nguyen (Stockholm University, OKC)

Presentation materials