Results on light dark matter particles with a low-threshold CRESST-II detector

Abstract

The CRESST-II experiment uses cryogenic detectors to search for nuclear recoil events induced by the elastic scattering of dark matter particles in CaWO 4 crystals. Given the low energy threshold of our detectors in combination with light target nuclei, low mass dark matter particles can be probed with high sensitivity. In this letter we present the results from data of a single detector module corresponding to 52 kg live days. A blind analysis is carried out. With an energy threshold for nuclear recoils of 307 eV we substantially enhance the sensitivity for light dark matter. Thereby, we extend the reach of direct dark matter experiments to the sub-GeV/c 2 region and demonstrate that the energy threshold is the key parameter in the search for low mass dark matter particles.

TES-Based Light Detectors for the CRESST Direct Dark Matter Search

“…The cryogenic rare event search with superconducting thermometers (CRESST) experiment ( [1,2] and references therein) uses tungsten thin-film TES for a highsensitivity measurement of phonons created in particle interactions in a CaWO 4 target crystal at milli-Kelvin temperatures, and an SOS disk as a separate cryogenic detector to measure the scintillation light emitted from the target. Each pair of phonon and light detector is referred to as a detector module in CRESST.…”

Search for dark matter in association with a Higgs boson decaying to two photons at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

“…Limits are shown at 90% C.L. For comparison, results from direct detection experiments (LUX [67], PandaX-II [68], XENON [69], superCDMS [70], and CRESST-II [71]) are also shown. The comparison is model dependent and solely valid in the context of this model.…”

A tale of two portals: testing light, hidden new physics at future e + e − colliders

“…In figure 1, we show the direct detection constraints in the vs. m K plane from experiments LUX [33] with data from 2013 to 2016, PANDAX-II [32], and CRESST-II [31] as well as CDMSlite [30] for low mass DM. Each panel shows choices of g D = e, 0.1, and 0.01, and the dark matter mass fixed to 0.2m K , 0.495m K , 0.6 GeV, or 30 GeV.…”

“…The leading direct detection constraints from LUX [33], PANDAX-II [32], and CRESST-II [31], as well as CDMSlite [30], shown in the vs. m K plane for various choices of g D and m χ . We fix m χ = 0.2m K (top left), m χ = 0.495m K (top right), m χ = 0.6 GeV (bottom left), and m χ = 30 GeV (bottom right), to demonstrate the dependence on the dark matter mass.…”

“…The lack of evidence for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in direct detection (DD) experiments [30][31][32][33], increasingly strong constraints on thermal WIMPs from indirect detection (ID) experiments [34][35][36][37][38], and non-observation of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) missing transverse energy signatures at the LHC [39,40], combine to an increasing unease with the standard WIMP miracle paradigm. On the other hand, dark matter coupled to kinetically mixed hidden photons suffers from strong direct detection constraints (see, e.g., [41]).…”