First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector
Abstract
We present the first limits on inelastic electron-scattering dark matter and dark photon absorption using a prototype SuperCDMS detector having a charge resolution of 0.1 electron-hole pairs (CDMS HVeV, a 0.93 g CDMS high-voltage device). These electron-recoil limits significantly improve experimental constraints on dark matter particles with masses as low as 1 MeV /c2. Here, we demonstrate a sensitivity to dark photons competitive with other leading approaches but using substantially less exposure (0.49 g d). These results demonstrate the scientific potential of phonon-mediated semiconductor detectors that are sensitive to single electronic excitations.
- Authors:
- more »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); \
- Contributing Org.:
- SuperCDMS Collaboration
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1462788
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1439463; OSTI ID: 1468696; OSTI ID: 1480804; OSTI ID: 1557121; OSTI ID: 1598292
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-PUB-18-150-AE; arXiv:1804.10697; PNNL-SA-134526
Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007; PRLTAO; 051301
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359; AC05-76RL01830; AC02-76SF00515; AC02-05CH11231; SC0015657
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 121 Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; 46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; dark matter; particle dark matter; hypothetical gauge bosons; dark matter detectors
Citation Formats
Agnese, R., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Azadbakht, E., Baker, W., Banik, S., Barker, D., Bauer, D. A., Binder, T., Bowles, M. A., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Cooley, J., Cornell, B., Cushman, P., Di Stefano, P. C. F., Doughty, T., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Harris, H. R., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jardin, D., Jena, C., Kelsey, M. H., Kennedy, A., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Leyva, J. V., Loer, B., Lopez Asamar, E., Lukens, P., MacDonell, D., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Miller, E. H., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Morales Mendoza, J. D., Nelson, J., Orrell, J. L., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pepin, M., Phipps, A., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pyle, M., Qiu, H., Rau, W., Reisetter, A., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Rogers, H. E., Romani, R. K., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Sander, J., Scarff, A., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Senapati, K., Serfass, B., So, J., Speller, D., Stanford, C., Stein, M., Street, J., Tanaka, H. A., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wilson, J. S., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wright, D. H., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Zhang, X., and Zhao, X. First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301.
Agnese, R., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Azadbakht, E., Baker, W., Banik, S., Barker, D., Bauer, D. A., Binder, T., Bowles, M. A., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Cooley, J., Cornell, B., Cushman, P., Di Stefano, P. C. F., Doughty, T., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Harris, H. R., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jardin, D., Jena, C., Kelsey, M. H., Kennedy, A., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Leyva, J. V., Loer, B., Lopez Asamar, E., Lukens, P., MacDonell, D., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Miller, E. H., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Morales Mendoza, J. D., Nelson, J., Orrell, J. L., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pepin, M., Phipps, A., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pyle, M., Qiu, H., Rau, W., Reisetter, A., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Rogers, H. E., Romani, R. K., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Sander, J., Scarff, A., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Senapati, K., Serfass, B., So, J., Speller, D., Stanford, C., Stein, M., Street, J., Tanaka, H. A., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wilson, J. S., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wright, D. H., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Zhang, X., & Zhao, X. First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301
Agnese, R., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Azadbakht, E., Baker, W., Banik, S., Barker, D., Bauer, D. A., Binder, T., Bowles, M. A., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Cooley, J., Cornell, B., Cushman, P., Di Stefano, P. C. F., Doughty, T., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Harris, H. R., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jardin, D., Jena, C., Kelsey, M. H., Kennedy, A., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Leyva, J. V., Loer, B., Lopez Asamar, E., Lukens, P., MacDonell, D., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Miller, E. H., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Morales Mendoza, J. D., Nelson, J., Orrell, J. L., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pepin, M., Phipps, A., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pyle, M., Qiu, H., Rau, W., Reisetter, A., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Rogers, H. E., Romani, R. K., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Sander, J., Scarff, A., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Senapati, K., Serfass, B., So, J., Speller, D., Stanford, C., Stein, M., Street, J., Tanaka, H. A., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wilson, J. S., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wright, D. H., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Zhang, X., and Zhao, X. Fri .
"First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301.
@article{osti_1462788,
title = {First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector},
author = {Agnese, R. and Aralis, T. and Aramaki, T. and Arnquist, I. J. and Azadbakht, E. and Baker, W. and Banik, S. and Barker, D. and Bauer, D. A. and Binder, T. and Bowles, M. A. and Brink, P. L. and Bunker, R. and Cabrera, B. and Calkins, R. and Cartaro, C. and Cerdeño, D. G. and Chang, Y. -Y. and Cooley, J. and Cornell, B. and Cushman, P. and Di Stefano, P. C. F. and Doughty, T. and Fascione, E. and Figueroa-Feliciano, E. and Fink, C. and Fritts, M. and Gerbier, G. and Germond, R. and Ghaith, M. and Golwala, S. R. and Harris, H. R. and Hong, Z. and Hoppe, E. W. and Hsu, L. and Huber, M. E. and Iyer, V. and Jardin, D. and Jena, C. and Kelsey, M. H. and Kennedy, A. and Kubik, A. and Kurinsky, N. A. and Lawrence, R. E. and Leyva, J. V. and Loer, B. and Lopez Asamar, E. and Lukens, P. and MacDonell, D. and Mahapatra, R. and Mandic, V. and Mast, N. and Miller, E. H. and Mirabolfathi, N. and Mohanty, B. and Morales Mendoza, J. D. and Nelson, J. and Orrell, J. L. and Oser, S. M. and Page, W. A. and Partridge, R. and Pepin, M. and Phipps, A. and Ponce, F. and Poudel, S. and Pyle, M. and Qiu, H. and Rau, W. and Reisetter, A. and Reynolds, T. and Roberts, A. and Robinson, A. E. and Rogers, H. E. and Romani, R. K. and Saab, T. and Sadoulet, B. and Sander, J. and Scarff, A. and Schnee, R. W. and Scorza, S. and Senapati, K. and Serfass, B. and So, J. and Speller, D. and Stanford, C. and Stein, M. and Street, J. and Tanaka, H. A. and Toback, D. and Underwood, R. and Villano, A. N. and von Krosigk, B. and Watkins, S. L. and Wilson, J. S. and Wilson, M. J. and Winchell, J. and Wright, D. H. and Yellin, S. and Young, B. A. and Zhang, X. and Zhao, X.},
abstractNote = {We present the first limits on inelastic electron-scattering dark matter and dark photon absorption using a prototype SuperCDMS detector having a charge resolution of 0.1 electron-hole pairs (CDMS HVeV, a 0.93 g CDMS high-voltage device). These electron-recoil limits significantly improve experimental constraints on dark matter particles with masses as low as 1 MeV /c2. Here, we demonstrate a sensitivity to dark photons competitive with other leading approaches but using substantially less exposure (0.49 g d). These results demonstrate the scientific potential of phonon-mediated semiconductor detectors that are sensitive to single electronic excitations.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 5,
volume = 121,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {8}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.051301
Other availability
Cited by: 19 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:

All figures and tables
(4 total)
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars
journal, March 2018
- Barkana, Rennan
- Nature, Vol. 555, Issue 7694
Two Z's or not two Z's?
journal, March 1984
- Galison, Peter; Manohar, Aneesh
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 136, Issue 4
Fine Structure in the Absorption-Edge Spectrum of Si
journal, September 1958
- Macfarlane, G. G.; McLean, T. P.; Quarrington, J. E.
- Physical Review, Vol. 111, Issue 5
Fully depleted, back-illuminated charge-coupled devices fabricated on high-resistivity silicon
journal, January 2003
- Holland, S. E.; Groom, D. E.; Palaio, N. P.
- IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 50, Issue 1
Intrinsic Optical Absorption in Single-Crystal Germanium and Silicon at 77°K and 300°K
journal, August 1955
- Dash, W. C.; Newman, R.
- Physical Review, Vol. 99, Issue 4
Photoelectric cross sections for 6 – 20-keV photons in beryllium, carbon, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, copper, silver, and lead
journal, June 1988
- Nathuram, R.; Sundara Rao, I. S.; Mehta, M. K.
- Physical Review A, Vol. 37, Issue 12
Quantum efficiency of the internal photoelectric effect in silicon and germanium
journal, February 1976
- Christensen, Ove
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 47, Issue 2
Direct detection constraints on dark photon dark matter
journal, July 2015
- An, Haipeng; Pospelov, Maxim; Pradler, Josef
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 747
Gram-scale cryogenic calorimeters for rare-event searches
journal, July 2017
- Strauss, R.; Rothe, J.; Angloher, G.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 96, Issue 2
Voltage‐assisted calorimetric ionization detector
journal, December 1988
- Luke, P. N.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 64, Issue 12
The near ultraviolet quantum yield of silicon
journal, February 1983
- Wilkinson, F. J.; Farmer, A. J. D.; Geist, J.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 54, Issue 2
Optical properties of intrinsic silicon at 300 K
journal, January 1995
- Green, Martin A.; Keevers, Mark J.
- Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 3, Issue 3
Absorption of light dark matter in semiconductors
journal, January 2017
- Hochberg, Yonit; Lin, Tongyan; Zurek, Kathryn M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 2
Finding an upper limit in the presence of an unknown background
journal, August 2002
- Yellin, S.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 66, Issue 3
Scalar dark matter candidates
journal, April 2004
- Bœhm, C.; Fayet, P.
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 683, Issue 1-2
X-Ray Interactions: Photoabsorption, Scattering, Transmission, and Reflection at E = 50-30,000 eV, Z = 1-92
journal, July 1993
- Henke, B. L.; Gullikson, E. M.; Davis, J. C.
- Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables, Vol. 54, Issue 2, p. 181-342
Secluded WIMP dark matter
journal, April 2008
- Pospelov, Maxim; Ritz, Adam; Voloshin, Mikhail
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 662, Issue 1
Photoabsorption near the Edge of Silicon and Aluminum
journal, September 1970
- Gähwiller, Christian; Brown, Frederick C.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 2, Issue 6
Analyzing the Discovery Potential for Light Dark Matter
journal, December 2015
- Izaguirre, Eder; Krnjaic, Gordan; Schuster, Philip
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 115, Issue 25
A small amount of mini-charged dark matter could cool the baryons in the early Universe
journal, May 2018
- Muñoz, Julian B.; Loeb, Abraham
- Nature, Vol. 557, Issue 7707
First Direct-Detection Constraints on eV-Scale Hidden-Photon Dark Matter with DAMIC at SNOLAB
journal, April 2017
- Aguilar-Arevalo, A.; Amidei, D.; Bertou, X.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 118, Issue 14
The local dark matter density
journal, May 2014
- Read, J. I.
- Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, Vol. 41, Issue 6
Radiation Ionization Processes in Germanium and Silicon Crystals
journal, May 1962
- Vavilov, V. S.
- Soviet Physics Uspekhi, Vol. 4, Issue 5
Direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter with semiconductor targets
journal, May 2016
- Essig, Rouven; Fernández-Serra, Marivi; Mardon, Jeremy
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 5
Direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter
journal, April 2012
- Essig, Rouven; Mardon, Jeremy; Volansky, Tomer
- Physical Review D, Vol. 85, Issue 7
Franz-Keldysh Effect of the Refractive Index in Semiconductors
journal, July 1965
- Seraphin, B. O.; Bottka, N.
- Physical Review, Vol. 139, Issue 2A
Thermal detection of single e-h pairs in a biased silicon crystal detector
journal, January 2018
- Romani, R. K.; Brink, P. L.; Cabrera, B.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 112, Issue 4
First Direct Detection Limits on Sub-GeV Dark Matter from XENON10
journal, July 2012
- Essig, Rouven; Manalaysay, Aaron; Mardon, Jeremy
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 2
Turning off the lights: How dark is dark matter?
journal, March 2011
- McDermott, Samuel D.; Yu, Hai-Bo; Zurek, Kathryn M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 83, Issue 6
Single-Electron and Single-Photon Sensitivity with a Silicon Skipper CCD
journal, September 2017
- Tiffenberg, Javier; Sofo-Haro, Miguel; Drlica-Wagner, Alex
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 119, Issue 13
Severely Constraining Dark-Matter Interpretations of the 21-cm Anomaly
journal, July 2018
- Berlin, Asher; Hooper, Dan; Krnjaic, Gordan
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 1
Two U(1)'s and ϵ charge shifts
journal, January 1986
- Holdom, Bob
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 166, Issue 2
On the experimental determination of the Fano factor in Si at soft X-ray wavelengths
journal, October 2002
- Owens, Alan; Fraser, G. W.; McCarthy, Kieran J.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 491, Issue 3
Absolute photoabsorption measurements of Mg, Al, and Si in the soft-x-ray region below the edges
journal, June 1994
- Gullikson, E. M.; Denham, P.; Mrowka, S.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 49, Issue 23
Solar cell efficiency and carrier multiplication in Si1−xGex alloys
journal, April 1998
- Wolf, M.; Brendel, R.; Werner, J. H.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 83, Issue 8
Projected sensitivity of the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment
journal, April 2017
- Agnese, R.; Anderson, A. J.; Aramaki, T.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 8
Figures / Tables found in this record:
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.