Migdal Effect in Semiconductors
Abstract
When a nucleus in an atom undergoes a collision, there is a small probability of an electron being excited inelastically as a result of the Migdal effect. In this Letter, we present the first complete derivation of the Migdal effect from dark matter-nucleus scattering in semiconductors, which also accounts for multiphonon production. The rate of the Migdal effect can be expressed in terms of the energy loss function of the material, which we calculate with density functional theory methods. Because of the smaller gap for electron excitations, we find that the rate for the Migdal effect is much higher in semiconductors than in atomic targets. Accounting for the Migdal effect in semiconductors can therefore significantly improve the sensitivity of experiments such as DAMIC, SENSEI, and SuperCDMS to sub-GeV dark matter.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); UC Hellman; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1814532
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1852927
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0019195
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 127 Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS; physics; dark matter; cosmology; dielectric properties; electrical properties; hypothetical particle physics models; lattice dynamics; structural properties; particle dark matter; particle astrophysics; cosmic rays and astroparticles; phonons; quasiparticles and collective excitations; plasmons; semiconductors; particle detectors
Citation Formats
Knapen, Simon, Kozaczuk, Jonathan, and Lin, Tongyan. Migdal Effect in Semiconductors. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.081805.
Knapen, Simon, Kozaczuk, Jonathan, & Lin, Tongyan. Migdal Effect in Semiconductors. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.081805
Knapen, Simon, Kozaczuk, Jonathan, and Lin, Tongyan. Fri .
"Migdal Effect in Semiconductors". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.081805.
@article{osti_1814532,
title = {Migdal Effect in Semiconductors},
author = {Knapen, Simon and Kozaczuk, Jonathan and Lin, Tongyan},
abstractNote = {When a nucleus in an atom undergoes a collision, there is a small probability of an electron being excited inelastically as a result of the Migdal effect. In this Letter, we present the first complete derivation of the Migdal effect from dark matter-nucleus scattering in semiconductors, which also accounts for multiphonon production. The rate of the Migdal effect can be expressed in terms of the energy loss function of the material, which we calculate with density functional theory methods. Because of the smaller gap for electron excitations, we find that the rate for the Migdal effect is much higher in semiconductors than in atomic targets. Accounting for the Migdal effect in semiconductors can therefore significantly improve the sensitivity of experiments such as DAMIC, SENSEI, and SuperCDMS to sub-GeV dark matter.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.081805},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 8,
volume = 127,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Aug 20 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Fri Aug 20 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}
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