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Title: Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors

Abstract

Paleo-detectors are a recently proposed method for the direct detection of dark matter (DM). In such detectors, one would search for the persistent damage features left by DM–nucleus interactions in ancient minerals. Initial sensitivity projections have shown that paleo-detectors could probe much of the remaining weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) parameter space. In this paper, we improve upon the cut-andcount approach previously used to estimate the sensitivity by performing a full spectral analysis of the background- and DM-induced signal spectra. We consider two scenarios for the systematic errors on the background spectra: (i) systematic errors on the normalization only, and (ii) systematic errors on the shape of the backgrounds. We find that the projected sensitivity is rather robust to imperfect knowledge of the backgrounds. Finally, we study how well the parameters of the true WIMP model could be reconstructed in the hypothetical case of a WIMP discovery.

Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
OSTI Identifier:
1496900
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1610973; OSTI ID: 1647465
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC007859; SC0007859
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review. D.
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Volume: 99 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Astronomy & Astrophysics; Physics; Cosmological parameters; Cosmology; Dark matter; Particle dark matter; Dark matter detectors

Citation Formats

Edwards, Thomas D. P., Kavanagh, Bradley J., Weniger, Christoph, Baum, Sebastian, Drukier, Andrzej K., Freese, Katherine, Górski, Maciej, and Stengel, Patrick. Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.99.043541.
Edwards, Thomas D. P., Kavanagh, Bradley J., Weniger, Christoph, Baum, Sebastian, Drukier, Andrzej K., Freese, Katherine, Górski, Maciej, & Stengel, Patrick. Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.99.043541
Edwards, Thomas D. P., Kavanagh, Bradley J., Weniger, Christoph, Baum, Sebastian, Drukier, Andrzej K., Freese, Katherine, Górski, Maciej, and Stengel, Patrick. Wed . "Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.99.043541.
@article{osti_1496900,
title = {Digging for dark matter: Spectral analysis and discovery potential of paleo-detectors},
author = {Edwards, Thomas D. P. and Kavanagh, Bradley J. and Weniger, Christoph and Baum, Sebastian and Drukier, Andrzej K. and Freese, Katherine and Górski, Maciej and Stengel, Patrick},
abstractNote = {Paleo-detectors are a recently proposed method for the direct detection of dark matter (DM). In such detectors, one would search for the persistent damage features left by DM–nucleus interactions in ancient minerals. Initial sensitivity projections have shown that paleo-detectors could probe much of the remaining weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) parameter space. In this paper, we improve upon the cut-andcount approach previously used to estimate the sensitivity by performing a full spectral analysis of the background- and DM-induced signal spectra. We consider two scenarios for the systematic errors on the background spectra: (i) systematic errors on the normalization only, and (ii) systematic errors on the shape of the backgrounds. We find that the projected sensitivity is rather robust to imperfect knowledge of the backgrounds. Finally, we study how well the parameters of the true WIMP model could be reconstructed in the hypothetical case of a WIMP discovery.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.99.043541},
journal = {Physical Review. D.},
number = 4,
volume = 99,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 27 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Wed Feb 27 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.99.043541

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Cited by: 16 works
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