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Environment-dependent mass splitting to suppress solar capture in the inelastic-doublet interpretation of the LZ event

Sudhakantha Girmohanta, Tae Hyun Jung

hep-pharXiv:2609.28129

Abstract

The inelastic electroweak-doublet interpretation of the 248\, keV recoil energy event reported by LUX-ZEPLIN faces strong constraints from solar capture. We propose an environment-dependent mass splitting generated by an ultralight scalar coupled quadratically to electrons. Its density-induced expectation value enhances the splitting in the Sun while preserving the laboratory value, providing a mechanism to suppress solar capture. We derive conditions for this mechanism and examine constraints from stellar cooling and electron-mass variations. We find that this scenario is phenomenologically viable, while it suffers from severe fine-tuning of the scalar potential.

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