Laser induced Compton scattering to dark matter in effective field theory

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2025; no. 7; pp. 28 - 24
• Main Authors: Ma, Kai, Li, Tong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 02.07.2025; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Dark matter; Dark Matter at Colliders; Decay rate; Elastic scattering; Electromagnetic fields; Elementary Particles; Field theory; High power lasers; Lasers; Particle decay; Particle physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativistic electron beams; Relativity Theory; Specific BSM Phenomenology; String Theory; Dark Matter at Colliders; Specific BSM Phenomenology
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP07(2025)028

A bstract The detection of light dark matter (DM) is a longstanding challenge in terrestrial experiments. High-intensity facilities with intense electromagnetic field may provide a plausible strategy to study strong-field particle physics and search for light DM. In this work, we propose to search for light DM particles through nonlinear Compton scattering in the presence of a high-intensity laser field. An ultra-relativistic electron beam collides with an intense laser pulse containing a number of optical photons and then decays to a pair of DM particles. We take into account the Dirac-type fermionic DM in a leptophilic scenario and the DM-electron interactions in the framework of effective field theory. The decay rates of an electron to a DM pair are calculated for effective DM operators of different bilinear products. We show the sensitivities of laser induced Compton scattering to the effective cutoff scale for DM lighter than 1 MeV and compare them with direct detection experiments.