Direct Dark Matter Detection Rates Research Articles

Predictions of a natural SUSY dark matter model for direct and indirect detection experiments

The most natural region of cosmologically compatible dark matter relic density in terms of low fine-tuning in a minimal supersymmetric standard model with nonuniversal gaugino masses is the so called bulk annihilation region. We study this region in a simple and predictive SUSY-GUT model of nonuniversal gaugino masses, where the latter transform as a combination of singlet plus a nonsinglet representation of the GUT group SU(5). The model prediction for the direct dark matter detection rates is well below the present CDMS and XENON100 limits, but within the reach of a future 1Ton XENON experiment. The most interesting and robust model prediction is an indirect detection signal of hard positron events, which resembles closely the shape of the observed positron spectrum from the PAMELA experiment.

Debris flows in direct dark matter searches: The modulation effect

The effect of some possible non standard WIMP velocity distributions, like the Debris Flows recently proposed, on the direct dark matter detection rates is investigated. We find that such distributions may be deciphered from the data, especially if the time variation of the event rates due to the annual motion of the Earth is observed

Impact of going beyond the Maxwell distribution in direct dark matter detection rates

We consider direct dark matter detection rates and investigate the difference between a standard Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution and a ``realistic'' distribution like the ones extracted from numerical $N$-body simulations. Sizable differences are observed when such results are compared to the standard Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. For a light target both the total rate and the annual modulation are reduced by $\ensuremath{\sim}25%$. For a heavy target the total rate is virtually unchanged, whereas the annual modulation is modified by up to 50%, depending on the weakly interacting massive particle mass and detector energy threshold. We also consider the effect of a possible velocity anisotropy, and the effect is found to be largest for a light target. For the realistic velocity distribution the anisotropy may reduce the annual modulation, in contrast to the Maxwell-Boltzmann case.