Paper detail

Direct detection of dark matter in universal bound states

We study the signatures for internal structure of dark matter in direct detection experiments in the context of asymmetric self-interacting dark matter. The self-interaction cross section of two dark matter particles at low energies is assumed to come close to saturating the S-wave unitarity bound, which requires the presence of a resonance near their scattering threshold. The universality of S-wave near-threshold resonances then implies that the low-energy scattering properties of a two-body bound state of dark matter particles are completely determined by its binding energy, irrespective of the underlying microphysics. The form factor for elastic scattering of the bound state from a nucleus and the possibility of breakup of the bound state produce new signatures in the nuclear recoil energy spectrum. If these features are observed in experiments, it will give a smoking-gun signature for the internal structure of dark matter.