Abstract
We present an analysis of electron recoils in cryogenic germanium detectors operated during the SuperCDMS Soudan experiment. The data are used to set new constraints on the axioelectric coupling of axion-like particles and the kinetic mixing parameter of dark photons, assuming the respective species constitutes all of the galactic dark matter. This study covers the mass range from 40 eV/$c^2$ to 500 eV/$c^2$ for both candidates, excluding previously untested parameter space for masses below ~1 keV/$c^2$. For the kinetic mixing of dark photons, values below $10^{-15}$ are reached for particle masses around 100 eV/$c^2$; for the axioelectric coupling of axion-like particles, values below $10^{-12}$ are reached for particles with masses in the range of a few-hundred eV/$c^2$.
Highlights
Many astrophysical and cosmological observations support the existence of dark matter, which constitutes more than 80% of the matter in the universe [1,2]
While in-medium effects can alter the effective kinetic mixing parameter that is probed through the dark absorption channel, this correction is only necessary for dark photon masses ≲20 eV=c2 [3], which is below the mass range considered in this analysis
The results on the search for axionlike particles (ALPs) and dark photons are shown in Figs. 9 and 10 in the form of exclusion limits on the axioelectric coupling gae and the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter ε, respectively
Summary
Many astrophysical and cosmological observations support the existence of dark matter, which constitutes more than 80% of the matter in the universe [1,2]. In the CDMS Low Ionization Threshold Experiment (CDMSlite), a much higher bias voltage is applied across the detector to make use of the NeganovTrofimov-Luke (NTL) effect [14,15], in which additional phonons are created in proportion to the number of drifting charges and the magnitude of the bias voltage This effect leads to a sensitivity to considerably lower-energy interactions and lighter dark matter particles. The expected signal from this process is a peak in the energy spectrum at the energy corresponding to the mass of the dark matter particle, with a width that is given by the resolution of the detector at that energy For this analysis, we do not model or subtract the background; only upper limits on the rates of dark absorption can be set.
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