Direct detection of solar chameleons with electron recoil data from XENONnT
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: We reassess prospects for direct detection of solar chameleons, in light of recent progress in modeling their production, and the availability of new XENONnT data. We show that the contribution from Primakoff production in the electric fields of electrons and ions dominates the electron recoil event rate, which is enhanced compared to earlier estimates based on magnetic conversion in the tachocline alone. We argue that the signal is governed by the effective coupling β eff ≡ β γ M e − 4 , which encodes the combined effects of production and detection, where β γ and M e are the chameleon-photon (conformal) coupling and chameleon-electron disformal coupling scale, respectively. Setting the height of the chameleon potential to the dark energy (DE) scale Λ ≃ 2.4 meV , we show that XENONnT electron recoil data set the upper limit log 10 β eff < − 6.9 . This limit is independent of the conformal matter coupling β m and index n , and applies to the whole class of inverse power-law chameleons, well beyond the n = 1 case usually studied. We comment on how future multitarget experiments and lower-threshold analyses could distinguish solar chameleons from other light (pseudo)scalar particles such as axions. Our work demonstrates that existing dark matter direct detection experiments can probe regions of parameter space relevant to screened DE models, providing complementary tests to astrophysical and fifth-force searches at no additional experimental cost.
DOI: 10.1103/8mpf-5s3k
Institutions: University of Trento, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics And Applications, University of Cambridge, Universidad de Zaragoza, Centro de Astropartículas y Física de Altas Energías, University of Salerno, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Gruppo Collegato di Salerno, TU Dortmund University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: European Commission, European Cooperation in Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Università degli Studi di Trento, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, European Regional Development Fund, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, H2020 European Research Council
Awards: G1040666699, G1175115578, G1219913396, G1482587386, G1622782223, G210041235, G2262748287, G2601397997, G2673512141, G2722674564, G300979063, G3209097197, Particles, Fields and Extended Objects, G34346518, G3452655474, G3480869486, G3681454997, G387506447, G4042783231, G410571670, G425668148, G434337789, G4442677895, G451917667, G4526231891, G5080475149, G5180915604, G5195188938, G5539308778, G5560776957, G5560843983, G5662792045, G5967599077, G6279833791, G6685758852, G6687049611, G7084143925, G8684520763, G870979687, G929308097
OpenAlex ID: W4416437639