Constraints on leptophilic light dark matter from internal heat flux of Earth

Abstract

Dark Matter in Earth intersecting orbits can scatter off the electrons and lose energy, and finally be gravitationally bound to Earth. Eventually they lose enough energy and accumulate at the core. It is assumed that DM annihilates/decays predominantly into Standard Model particles inside Earth. The heat flux from these processes is compared with the experimentally measured value of internal heat flux of Earth which is 44 TW. Assuming steady state between capture and annihilation/decay, we put constraints on the scattering cross section of DM with electrons as a function of their mass. For low mass regions ($<10^{-2}$GeV), these constraints on leptophilic DM are better than ones obtained from direct-detection experiments.