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Title: Searching for dark absorption with direct detection experiments

Journal Article · · Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [2]
  1. Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv (Israel). Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy
  2. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States). C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics
  3. Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv (Israel). Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy ; Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot (Israel). Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics

We consider the absorption by bound electrons of dark matter in the form of dark photons and axion-like particles, as well as of dark photons from the Sun, in current and next-generation direct detection experiments. Experiments sensitive to electron recoils can detect such particles with masses between a few eV to more than 10 keV. For dark photon dark matter, we update a previous bound based on XENON10 data and derive new bounds based on data from XENON100 and CDMSlite. We find these experiments to disfavor previously allowed parameter space. Moreover, we derive sensitivity projections for SuperCDMS at SNOLAB for silicon and germanium targets, as well as for various possible experiments with scintillating targets (cesium iodide, sodium iodide, and gallium arsenide). The projected sensitivity can probe large new regions of parameter space. For axion-like particles, the same current direction detection data improves on previously known direct-detection constraints but does not bound new parameter space beyond known stellar cooling bounds. However, projected sensitivities of the upcoming SuperCDMS SNOLAB using germanium can go beyond these and even probe parameter space consistent with possible hints from the white dwarf luminosity function. We find similar results for dark photons from the sun. For all cases, direct-detection experiments can have unprecedented sensitivity to dark-sector particles.

Research Organization:
New York Univ. (NYU), NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0008061
OSTI ID:
1426146
Journal Information:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online), Vol. 2017, Issue 6; ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer BerlinCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 101 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Direct detection of strongly interacting sub-GeV dark matter via electron recoils journal September 2019
New constraints and discovery potential of sub-GeV dark matter with xenon detectors journal August 2017
Direct detection of nuclear scattering of sub-Gev dark matter using molecular excitations journal November 2019
Direct detection of axion-like particles in Bismuth-based topological insulators journal August 2018
New constraints and discovery potential of sub-GeV dark matter with xenon detectors text January 2017
New Constraints and Prospects for sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering off Electrons in Xenon text January 2017
Light Dark Matter: Models and Constraints text January 2017
SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Constraints on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Surface Run text January 2018
Directional Detection of Light Dark Matter with Polar Materials text January 2018
Parametric Resonance Production of Ultralight Vector Dark Matter text January 2018
Direct Detection of Strongly Interacting Sub-GeV Dark Matter via Electron Recoils text January 2019
On the relation between Migdal effect and dark matter-electron scattering in isolated atoms and semiconductors text January 2019