Speaker
Zun Wang
(Southeast University)
Description
We derive conservative upper limits on the dark-matter–nucleon scattering cross-section for sub-GeV mass dark matter using low-energy chiral effective field theory, independent of UV details. The leading-order hadronic couplings are most severely constrained by the supernova cooling argument via processes such as nucleon bremsstrahlung and pion–DM conversion. We rule out both spin-independent and spin-dependent cross-sections ≳ 10^(−50)cm² for DM masses in the keV–a few hundred MeV range—several orders of magnitude stronger than existing cosmological and meson decay constraints, with significant implications for future low-mass direct detection experiments.