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Title: A review of the discovery reach of directional Dark Matter detection

Journal Article · · Physics Reports
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [2];  [13];  [10];  [14]
  1. Université Grenoble Alpes (France)
  2. Univ. of Nottingham (United Kingdom)
  3. Wellesley College, MA (United States)
  4. Université de Lyon (France)
  5. Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
  6. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  7. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
  8. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Sorbonne Universités, Paris (France)
  9. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Broad Inst., Cambridge, MA (United States)
  10. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  11. Univ. of London, Egham Hill, Surrey (United Kingdom)
  12. Univ. of Warwick, Coventry (United Kingdom)
  13. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  14. Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Cosmological observations indicate that most of the matter in the Universe is Dark Matter. Dark Matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) can be detected directly, via its elastic scattering off target nuclei. Most current direct detection experiments only measure the energy of the recoiling nuclei. However, directional detection experiments are sensitive to the direction of the nuclear recoil as well. Due to the Sun's motion with respect to the Galactic rest frame, the directional recoil rate has a dipole feature, peaking around the direction of the Solar motion. This provides a powerful tool for demonstrating the Galactic origin of nuclear recoils and hence unambiguously detecting Dark Matter. Furthermore, the directional recoil distribution depends on the WIMP mass, scattering cross section and local velocity distribution. Therefore, with a large number of recoil events it will be possible to study the physics of Dark Matter in terms of particle and astrophysical properties. Lastly, we review the potential of directional detectors for detecting and characterizing WIMPs.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Research Corporation for Science Advancement; European Research Council (ERC); Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); Leverhulme Trust; John Templeton Foundation; U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0010504; SC0009937; SC0007852; BR2012-011; 23325; 277591; ST/L000393/1; RPG-192; FP7/2007–2013; 278234; 48222; 2011-DN-077-ARI050-03
OSTI ID:
1598645
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1359755
Journal Information:
Physics Reports, Vol. 627, Issue C; ISSN 0370-1573
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 134 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Freeze-in production of sterile neutrino dark matter in U(1) B−L model journal September 2016
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Freeze-in Production of Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter in U(1)$_{\rm B-L}$ Model text January 2016
Augury of Darkness: The Low-Mass Dark Z' Portal text January 2016
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches - current status and future prospects text January 2017
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Casting a Wide Signal Net with Future Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments text January 2018
A Dark Matter Hurricane: Measuring the S1 Stream with Dark Matter Detectors text January 2018
Direct Detection of WIMP Dark Matter: Concepts and Status text January 2019
Velocity Dependent Dark Matter Interactions in Single-Electron Resolution Semiconductor Detectors with Directional Sensitivity text January 2019
Dark matter astrometry at underground detectors with multiscatter events text January 2019

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