Dark matter repulsion could thwart direct detection
  We consider a feeble repulsive interaction between ordinary matter and dark
matter, with a range similar to or larger than the size of the Earth. Dark
matter can thus be repelled from the Earth, leading to null results in direct
detection experiments, regardless of the strength of the short-distance
interactions of dark matter with atoms. Generically, such a repulsive force
would not allow trapping of dark matter inside astronomical bodies. In this
scenario, accelerator-based experiments may furnish the only robust signals of
asymmetric dark matter models, which typically lack indirect signals from
self-annihilation. Some of the variants of our hypothesis are also briefly
discussed.
