Abstract
Self-interactions within the dark sector could clump dark matter into heavy composite states with low number density, leading to a highly suppressed event rate in existing direct detection experiments. However, the large interaction cross section between such ultra-heavy dark matter (UHDM) and standard model matter results in a distinctive and compelling signature: long, straight damage tracks as they pass through and scatter with matter. In this work, we propose using geologically old quartz samples as large-exposure detectors for UHDM. We describe a high-resolution readout method based on electron microscopy, characterize the most favorable geological samples for this approach, and study its reach in a simple model of the dark sector. The advantage of this search strategy is two-fold: the age of geological quartz compensates for the low number density of UHDMs, and the distinct geometry of the damage track serves as a high-fidelity background rejection tool.
Highlights
A major outstanding puzzle in modern physics is the nature of dark matter (DM) [1]
We propose a detection method for ultraheavy dark matter (UHDM)
Our proposed experiment is based on mapping damage tracks in ancient quartz samples with SEMCL scanning
Summary
A major outstanding puzzle in modern physics is the nature of dark matter (DM) [1]. Despite the ever-improving sensitivities of direct detection experiments, the simplest DM candidates have not been observed, motivating searches for a wider range of possible dark sectors. A major challenge for such a detection strategy is the ability to efficiently identify DM signatures in a large volume of rock and distinguish them from geological, radioactive, and cosmic ray backgrounds Such discrimination is significantly simpler in searches for UHDMs, since the extremely long and continuous cylindrical damage patterns they generically leave are qualitatively different from the sporadic defects due to expected backgrounds. Note that a similar search for long damage tracks was performed by Price and Salamon [22] in ancient mica crystals with null results While they used this result to constrain the abundance of magnetic monopoles, the experiment is sensitive to UHDMs with masses mDM ≲ 1026 GeV [42,43].
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