Solar Neutrino Constraints on Inelastic Dark Matter Scattering in Light of Recent LUX-ZEPLIN Observations

arXiv:2609.11833 · hep-ph, astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.SR · Submitted 2026-09-10 · Read on arXiv

hep-ph, astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.SR

Submitted: 2026-09-10

Updated: 2026-09-10

Comments: 12 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Collaboration recently reported the detection of a single nuclear recoil candidate event with a very high recoil energy.

Abstract

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Collaboration recently reported the detection of a single nuclear recoil candidate event with a very high recoil energy. The lack of any corresponding low-energy events motivates models in which dark matter scattering with nuclei has a nontrivial momentum dependence or proceeds inelastically, suppressing the rate of low-energy recoils. In this study, we consider the constraints on inelastic dark matter, including scenarios favored by the LZ event, from the absence of an excess of high-energy neutrinos from the Sun in IceCube observations. We confirm the results of Pospelov & Ramani and show, more generally, that the lack of an excess of high-energy neutrinos from the Sun strongly constrains the parameter space in this class of models.

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