LUX-ZEPLIN's Stairway to Hea$ν$en: limits on elastic scatters of dark matter from solar capture
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The recent report of xenon recoiling with about 250 keV energy at the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter direct detection experiment was interpreted by the collaboration as either a momentum-dependent elastic scatter or an inelastic scatter. In this study, we take elastic operators listed by LZ that fit the datum to better than 3$σ$, and perform a log-likelihood analysis using the reported significances to reverse-engineer their best-fit Wilson coefficients. We then estimate for each operator the rate of dark matter capturing in the Sun, and assuming self-annihilations of the captured population to various Standard Model final states studied by IceCube, we place limits on them from measurements at IceCube and Super-Kamiokande of the fluxes of solar-direction and atmospheric neutrinos. We show that large ranges of dark matter masses around the weak scale that explain the LZ event are ruled out in this scenario, with the strongest limits placed by direct annihilations to neutrino-antineutrino final states.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institutions: Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Stockholm University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213924186