Daily modulation and gravitational focusing in direct dark matter search experiments

Kouvaris, Chris; Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund

doi:10.1103/physrevd.92.075016

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The escape velocity from the surface of the Earth is around 11 km/s. For DM particles at such low speeds, effects such as gravitational capture [64,65] and gravitational focusing [66] may become important. These effects are not incorporated in the flux calculation.…”

Section: B Strongly Interacting Dark Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching for low-mass dark matter particles with a massive Ge bolometer operated above ground

Armengaud¹,

Augier²,

Benoı̂t³

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. D

235

231

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they elastically scatter off nuclei [4,5]. In recent decades, significant advances have been made in the search for WIMPs in the GeV/c 2 -to TeV/c 2 -range that is natural for Supersymmetry [6][7][8]. However, in the light of the absence of signal in that region there is an increasing interest in DM particles in the GeV/c 2 and sub-GeV/c 2 mass range [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. These searches require experimental thresholds as low as a few tens of eV, a performance that can be attained by cryogenic detectors [16,17]. A particular advantage of such detector technology is that the thermal signal is not affected by the strong quenching effects that tend to severely reduce the amplitude of ionization or scintillation signals at low energy. This paper describes the results obtained by the EDELWEISS collaboration with a 33.4-g Ge detector demonstrating that such a device equipped with a neutron-transmutation-doped Ge (Ge-NTD) sensor [18] can reach the sensitivity to probe the sub-GeV domain. As a proof of the relevance of this technology, it is used in

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Section: B Strongly Interacting Dark Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching for low-mass dark matter particles with a massive Ge bolometer operated above ground

Armengaud¹,

Augier²,

Benoı̂t³

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. D

235

231

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, the expected problematic diurnal modulation in case of SIMPs is not affected by the gravitational focusing of the Sun, although it can be influenced by that of the Earth. The implication of the latter effect for direct-detection searches was studied in [31]. It appears that the Earth gravitational effect on the diurnal modulation of the total density of dark matter is comparable to the diurnal modulation coming from the rotation of the Earth w.r.t the Galactic frame and, thus, can hardly solve this issue for SIMPs.…”

Section: Gravitational Focusingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strongly interacting dark matter and the DAMA signal

Laletin

Cudell

2019

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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We show that models of strongly interacting (SIMP) dark matter built to reproduce the DAMA signal actually cannot account for its time dependence. We discuss the constraints on this type of models coming from direct detection experiments and study the propagation of thermalised dark matter particles in the ground for the allowed values of the parameters. We consider a simple 1D diffusion and a more detailed 3D diffusion. In both cases the predicted signal has either the wrong phase of the annual modulation or a much larger amplitude of the diurnal modulation.

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“…One is related to the rotational velocity of the Earth around its own axis (∼ 1km/s), which is superimposed with the total velocity of the Earth in the rest frame of the Galaxy, causing a small daily fluctuation of the DM flux of the order ∼ 10 −4 at the detector. The second source is due to gravitational focusing, i.e., the fact that the Earth works as a gravitational lens causing small fluctuations on the DM density depending on the relative position of the detector with the center of the Earth and the direction of the DM wind [62]. All three sources of modulation have different amplitudes and phases, producing a final modulation which is the superposition of all.…”

Section: Single Scattering: Comparison To Earthshadowmentioning

confidence: 99%

DaMaSCUS: the impact of underground scatterings on direct detection of light dark matter

Emken

Kouvaris

2017

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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Abstract. Conventional dark matter direct detection experiments set stringent constraints on dark matter by looking for elastic scattering events between dark matter particles and nuclei in underground detectors. However these constraints weaken significantly in the sub-GeV mass region, simply because light dark matter does not have enough energy to trigger detectors regardless of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section. Even if future experiments lower their energy thresholds, they will still be blind to parameter space where dark matter particles interact with nuclei strongly enough that they lose enough energy and become unable to cause a signal above the experimental threshold by the time they reach the underground detector. Therefore in case dark matter is in the sub-GeV region and strongly interacting, possible underground scatterings of dark matter with terrestrial nuclei must be taken into account because they affect significantly the recoil spectra and event rates, regardless of whether the experiment probes DM via DM-nucleus or DM-electron interaction. To quantify this effect we present the publicly available Dark Matter Simulation Code for Underground Scatterings (DAMASCUS), a Monte Carlo simulator of DM trajectories through the Earth taking underground scatterings into account. Our simulation allows the precise calculation of the density and velocity distribution of dark matter at any detector of given depth and location on Earth. The simulation can also provide the accurate recoil spectrum in underground detectors as well as the phase and amplitude of the diurnal modulation caused by this shadowing effect of the Earth, ultimately relating the modulations expected in different detectors, which is important to decisively conclude if a diurnal modulation is due to dark matter or an irrelevant background.

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Daily modulation and gravitational focusing in direct dark matter search experiments

Cited by 14 publications

References 35 publications

Searching for low-mass dark matter particles with a massive Ge bolometer operated above ground

Searching for low-mass dark matter particles with a massive Ge bolometer operated above ground

Strongly interacting dark matter and the DAMA signal

DaMaSCUS: the impact of underground scatterings on direct detection of light dark matter

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