The DAMA project: Achievements, implications and perspectives

The Future Role of Inorganic Crystal Scintillators in Dark Matter Investigations

“…Other analyses, not shown here, exclude the presence of any background modulation in the energy regions above 6 keV. Among them, the time behaviour of the integral rate above 90 keV, R 90 , has been analysed [6,7,24,30]; similar conclusions have also been obtained considering data in other energy regions.…”

“…The NaI(Tl) target detectors are sensitive to many DM candidates, interaction types, and scenarios (see, e.g., Ref. [30] and references therein). A possible fake effect or systematic should not only account for the measured modulation amplitude but in addition simultaneously satisfy all the above-mentioned conditions (see, e.g., Ref.…”

“…A possible fake effect or systematic should not only account for the measured modulation amplitude but in addition simultaneously satisfy all the above-mentioned conditions (see, e.g., Ref. [30] and references therein).…”

Material Screening with Mass Spectrometry

“…Moreover, scintillating NaI(Tl) crystals are widely used as dark matter (DM) detectors: for instance, 25 highly radiopure NaI(Tl) detectors are successfully used by DAMA/LIBRA experiment to investigate the presence of DM particles in the galactic halo by exploiting the DM annual modulation signature. In addition, these detectors are suitable for various other rare process studies like searches for solar axions and cluster decay, possible processes of Pauli exclusion principle violation in 127 I and 23 Na isotopes and electron stability [9,10]. This is due to several characteristics such as i.e., high light response and duty-cycle (experimental live-time), appropriate signal-to-noise discrimination near the energy threshold, high stability and reproducibility of measurements, possibility to realize crystals with large masses, scalability and segmentation of the setup to increase sensitivity [9][10][11].…”

“…AMS is based on the direct counting of atoms. It is characterized by a high isotope sensitivity and selectivity for extreme ultra-trace analysis of both radionuclides and stable nuclides (e.g., 14 C, 10 Be, 26 Al, 36 Cl, 41 Ca, 59 Ni, 129 I, Th, U and Pu). The analysis requires smaller samples (mg and even sub-mg amounts) and shorter measuring times (less than 1 h) to be performed compared to other radioanalytical techniques, but the experimental equipment is more complicated and expensive due to higher purchase and maintenance costs required by a particle accelerator [16].…”