The direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter interacting with nucleons and electrons is hampered by the low recoil energies induced by scatterings in the detectors. Novel ideas are therefore needed to circumvent this experimental limitation. For instance, higher recoil energies in the detector can be achieved in the case of boosted dark matter, where a component of dark matter particles is endowed with large kinetic energies. Furthermore, the scatterings with light dark matter can affect the cosmic-ray transport in astrophysical environments altering the primary and secondary particle spectra observed at the Earth. In this talk, I will review the current status of light dark matter probes and present two interesting scenarios. Firstly, I will show that the current evaporation of primordial black holes (alternative dark matter candidates) with masses from $10^{14}$ to $10^{18}$ grams is an efficient source of boosted light dark matter. Then, I will investigate the effects of the DM-proton scatterings in star-forming and starburst galaxies, which are well-known cosmic-ray "reservoirs" and well-motivated astrophysical emitters of high-energy neutrinos and gamma-rays through hadronic collisions. For both the two scenarios, I will explore the phenomenological implications and discuss new constraints on the dark matter parameter space.
Organized by: Catarina Cosme