Search for Dark Matter Ionization on the Night Side of Jupiter with Cassini

Abstract

We present a new search for dark matter (DM) using planetary atmospheres. We point out that annihilating DM in planets can produce ionizing radiation, which can lead to excess production of ionospheric H₃⁺ . We apply this search strategy to the night side of Jupiter near the equator. The night side has zero solar irradiation, and low latitudes are sufficiently far from ionizing auroras, leading to a low-background search. We use Cassini data on ionospheric H₃⁺ emission collected three hours either side of Jovian midnight, during its flyby in 2000, and set novel constraints on the DM-nucleon scattering cross section down to about 10^-38 cm² . We also highlight that DM atmospheric ionization may be detected in Jovian exoplanets using future high-precision measurements of planetary spectra.