No room to hide: implications of cosmic-ray upscattering for GeV-scale dark matter

The irreducible upscattering of cold dark matter by cosmic rays opens up the intriguing possibility detecting even light in conventional direct detection experiments or underground neutrino detectors. mechanism also significantly enhances sensitivity to models with very large nuclear scattering rates, where atmosphere and rock overburden efficiently stop standard non-relativistic particles before they could reach detector. In this article, we demonstrate that cosmic-ray essentially closes window for strongly interacting (sub-)GeV mass range. Arriving at conclusion crucially requires a detailed treatment both form factors inelastic matter-nucleus scattering, as well including full momentum-transfer dependence amplitudes. We illustrate latter point considering three generic situations such momentum-dependence is particularly relevant, namely interactions dominated exchange vector scalar mediators, respectively, finite size. As final concrete example, apply our analysis putative hexaquark state, which has been suggested viable baryonic candidate. Once again, find updated constraints derived work close significant part otherwise unconstrained parameter space.