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This content will become publicly available on June 1, 2026

Title: Cosmic-ray cooling in active galactic nuclei as a new probe of inelastic dark matter
We present a novel way to probe inelastic dark matter using cosmic-ray (CR) cooling in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Dark matter (DM) in the vicinity of supermassive black holes may scatter off CRs, resulting in the rapid cooling of CRs for sufficiently large cross sections. This in turn can alter the high-energy neutrino and gamma-ray fluxes detected from these sources. We show that AGN cooling bounds obtained through the multimessenger data of NGC 1068 and TXS 0506 + 056 allows us to reach unprecedently large mass splittings for inelastic DM ( ≳ TeV ), orders of magnitude larger than those probed by direct detection experiments and DM capture in neutron stars. Furthermore, we demonstrate that cooling bounds from AGNs can probe thermal light DM with small mass splittings. This provides novel and complementary constraints in parts of a parameter space accessible solely by colliders and beam-dump experiments.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2308021 2108467 2108466
PAR ID:
10652365
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
American Physical Society
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Physical Review D
Volume:
111
Issue:
12
ISSN:
2470-0010
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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