Weakly Interacting Massive Particles Interactions Research Articles

Leptophilic fermion WIMP: Role of future lepton colliders

The leptophilic weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) is realized in a minimal renormalizable model scenario where scalar mediators with lepton number establish the WIMP interaction with the standard model (SM) leptons. We perform a comprehensive analysis for such a WIMP scenario for two distinct cases with an SU(2) doublet or singlet mediator considering all the relevant theoretical, cosmological and experimental constraints at present. We show that the mono-photon search at near-future lepton collider experiments (ILC, FCC-ee, CEPC, etc.) can play a significant role to probe the yet unexplored parameter range allowed by the WIMP relic density constraint. This will complement the search prospect at the near-future hadron collider experiment (HL-LHC). Furthermore, we discuss the combined model scenario including both the doublet and singlet mediator. The combined model is capable of explaining the long-standing muon (g-2) anomaly which is an additional advantage. We demonstrate that the allowed region for anomalous muon (g-2) explanation, which has been updated very recently at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, can also be probed at the future colliders which will thus be a simultaneous authentication of the model scenario.

Search for inelastic scattering of WIMP dark matter in XENON1T

We report the results of a search for the inelastic scattering of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the XENON1T dark matter experiment. Scattering off $^{129}$Xe is the most sensitive probe of inelastic WIMP interactions, with a signature of a 39.6 keV de-excitation photon detected simultaneously with the nuclear recoil. Using an exposure of 0.89 tonne-years, we find no evidence of inelastic WIMP scattering with a significance of more than 2$\sigma$. A profile-likelihood ratio analysis is used to set upper limits on the cross-section of WIMP-nucleus interactions. We exclude new parameter space for WIMPs heavier than 100 GeV/c${}^2$, with the strongest upper limit of $3.3 \times 10^{-39}$ cm${}^2$ for 130 GeV/c${}^2$ WIMPs at 90\% confidence level.

Directional Sensitivity in Light-Mass Dark Matter Searches with Single-Electron-Resolution Ionization Detectors.

We propose a method using solid state detectors with directional sensitivity to dark matter interactions to detect low-mass weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) originating from galactic sources. In spite of a large body of literature for high-mass WIMP detectors with directional sensitivity, no available technique exists to cover WIMPs in the mass range <1 GeV/c^{2}. We argue that single-electron-resolution semiconductor detectors allow for directional sensitivity once properly calibrated. We examine the commonly used semiconductor material response to these low-mass WIMP interactions.

Searching for Dark Matter: Background Discrimination in the PICO detector

The PICO experiment uses superheated bubble chambers located at SNOLAB for direct detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), one of the candidate particles for dark matter. Bubbles form in the detector when a particle interacts with a nucleus of the target fluid, and the recoiling deposits enough energy to nucleate a bubble in the superheated fluid. Much of the data analysis for PICO focuses on determining what type of particle caused a bubble to form. The differentiation is made by analysing signals from pressure sensors, piezoelectric acoustic sensors, and stereoscopic cameras. This talk will present an overview of the sensors and analysis which are used to discriminate between WIMP interactions and background events in the PICO 2L detector, with a focus on the role of image analysis and the potential sensitivity of the detector if good discrimination can be realized.

A simulation-based study of the neutron backgrounds for NaI dark matter experiments

Among the direct search experiments for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter, the DAMA experiment observed an annual modulation signal interpreted as WIMP interactions with a significance of 9.2σ. Recently, Jonathan Davis claimed that the DAMA modulation may be interpreted on the basis of the neutron scattering events induced by the muons and neutrinos together. We tried to simulate the neutron backgrounds at the Gran Sasso and Yangyang laboratory with and without the polyethylene shielding to quantify the effects of the ambient neutrons on the direct detection experiments based on the crystals.

Dark matter direct detection with SuperCDMS Soudan

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Experiment (CDMS) and its successor, SuperCDMS, have had a long history of establishing world-leading upper limits on the interaction of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with standard model nucleons. SuperCDMS uses arrays of cryogenic germanium detectors to achieve excellent discrimination between the nuclear recoils expected for WIMP interactions and radioactively produced electron recoils through the collection of ionization and athermal phonons. Recent analyses of the data collected from the current installation of Interleaved Z-Sensitive Ionization and Phonon (iZIP) detectors have probed new regions of the WIMP parameter space, particularly in the region of low-mass WIMP interactions. This paper will discuss the current work of the SuperCDMS collaboration.

Systematics of Low Threshold Modulation Searches in DMS II

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment (CDMS II) used underground-based germanium and silicon detectors to search for the scattering of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which are among the leading candidates for the dark matter component of the universe. Using the ionization and athermal phonons measured in particle interactions, CDMS II was able to achieve excellent discrimination between the nuclear recoils expected for WIMP interactions and radioactively produced electron recoils. With the rise of interest in the low energy interactions of light mass WIMPs, the SuperCDMS collaboration has undertaken a search for an annually modulating signal at low thresholds in the CDMS II data. Previous results detailed the analysis of data from eight germanium detectors over the course of six runs, to thresholds of 5 keVnr (nuclear recoil equivalent energy). We will discuss the impact of systematics at these low thresholds and their implications for thresholds down to 2.27 keVnr.

WIMP physics with ensembles of direct-detection experiments

The search for weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter is multi-pronged. Ulti- mately, the WIMP-dark-matter picture will only be confirmed if different classes of experiments see consistent signals and infer the same WIMP properties. In this work, we review the ideas, meth- ods, and status of direct-detection searches. We focus in particular on extracting WIMP physics (WIMP interactions and phase-space distribution) from direct-detection data in the early discov- ery days when multiple experiments see of order dozens to hundreds of events. To demonstrate the essential complementarity of different direct-detection experiments in this context, we create mock data intended to represent the data from the near-future Generation 2 experiments. We consider both conventional supersymmetry-inspired benchmark points (with spin-independent and -dependent elastic cross sections just below current limits), as well as benchmark points for other classes of models (inelastic and effective-operator paradigms). We also investigate the effect on parameter estimation of loosening or dropping the assumptions about the local WIMP phase-space distribution. We arrive at two main conclusions. Firstly, teasing out WIMP physics with experi- ments depends critically on having a wide set of detector target materials, spanning a large range of target nuclear masses and spin-dependent sensitivity. It is also highly desirable to obtain data from low-threshold experiments. Secondly, a general reconstruction of the local WIMP velocity distribu- tion, which will only be achieved if there are multiple experiments using different target materials, is critical to obtaining a robust and unbiased estimate of the WIMP mass.

Search for low-mass dark matter with CsI(Tl) crystal detectors

We present a search for low-mass ($\leq 20 GeV/c^{2}$) weakly interacting massive particles(WIMPs), strong candidates of dark matter particles,using the low-background CsI(Tl) detector array of the Korea Invisible Mass Search (KIMS) experiment. With a total data exposure of 24,324.3kg$\cdot$days,we search for WIMP interaction signals produced by nuclei recoiling from WIMP-nuclear elastic scattering with visible energies between 2 and 4keV. The observed energy distribution of candidate events is consistent with null signals, and upper limits of the WIMP-proton spin-independent interaction are set with a 90% confidence level. The observed limit rejects most of the low mass region of parameter space favored by the DAMA annual modulation signal.

Observation and applications of single-electron charge signals in the XENON100 experiment

The XENON100 dark matter experiment uses liquid xenon in a time projection chamber (TPC) to measure xenon nuclear recoils resulting from the scattering of dark matter weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). In this paper, we report the observation of single-electron charge signals which are not related to WIMP interactions. These signals, which show the excellent sensitivity of the detector to small charge signals, are explained as being due to the photoionization of impurities in the liquid xenon and of the metal components inside the TPC. They are used as a unique calibration source to characterize the detector. We explain how we can infer crucial parameters for the XENON100 experiment: the secondary-scintillation gain, the extraction yield from the liquid to the gas phase and the electron drift velocity.

Introduction to the CDEX experiment

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are the candidates of dark matter in our universe. Up to now any direct interaction of WIMP with nuclei has not been observed yet. The exclusion limits of the spin-independent cross section of WIMP-nucleon which have been experimentally obtained is about 10^{-7}pb at high mass region and only 10^{-5}pb} at low mass region. China Jin-Ping underground laboratory CJPL is the deepest underground lab in the world and provides a very promising environment for direct observation of dark matter. The China Dark Matter Experiment (CDEX) experiment is going to directly detect the WIMP flux with high sensitivity in the low mass region. Both CJPL and CDEX have achieved a remarkable progress in recent two years. The CDEX employs a point-contact germanium semi-conductor detector PCGe whose detection threshold is less than 300 eV. We report the measurement results of Muon flux, monitoring of radioactivity and Radon concentration carried out in CJPL, as well describe the structure and performance of the 1 kg PCGe detector CDEX-1 and 10kg detector array CDEX-10 including the detectors, electronics, shielding and cooling systems. Finally we discuss the physics goals of the CDEX-1, CDEX-10 and the future CDEX-1T detectors.

Model Independent Determination of the Dark Matter Mass from Direct Detection Experiments

Determining the dark matter (DM) mass is of paramount importance for understanding dark matter. We present a novel parametrization of the DM speed distribution which will allow the DM mass to be accurately measured using data from weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) direct detection experiments. Specifically, we parametrize the natural logarithm of the speed distribution as a polynomial in the speed v. We demonstrate, using mock data from upcoming experiments, that by fitting the WIMP mass and interaction cross section, along with the polynomial coefficients, we can accurately reconstruct both the WIMP mass and speed distribution. This new method is the first demonstration that an accurate, unbiased reconstruction of the WIMP mass is possible without prior assumptions about the distribution function. We anticipate that this technique will be invaluable in the analysis of future experimental data.

Review of dark matter direct detection experiments

Matter, as we know it, makes up less than 5% of the Universe. Various astrophysical observations have confirmed that one quarter of the Universe and most of the matter content in the Universe is made up of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is yet to be discovered and is one of the biggest questions in physics. Particle physics combined with astrophysical measurements of the abundance gives rise to a dark matter candidate called weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). The low density of WIMPs in the galaxies and the extremely weak nature of the interaction with ordinary matter make detection of the WIMP an extraordinarily challenging task, with abundant fakes from various radioactive and cosmogenic backgrounds with much stronger electromagnetic interaction. The extremely weak nature of the WIMP interaction dictates detectors that have extremely low naturally occurring radioactive background, a large active volume (mass) of sensitive detector material to maximize statistics, a highly efficient detector-based rejection mechanism for the dominant electromagnetic background and sophisticated analysis techniques to reject any residual background. This paper reviews currently available major technologies being pursued by various collaborations, with special emphasis on the cryogenic Ge detector technology used by the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Collaboration (CDMS).

Dark matter collisions with the human body

We investigate the interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with nuclei in the human body. We are motivated by the fact that WIMPs are excellent candidates for the dark matter in the Universe. Our estimates use a 70 kg human and a variety of WIMP masses and cross-sections. The contributions from individual elements in the body are presented and it is found that the dominant contribution is from scattering off of oxygen (hydrogen) nuclei for the spin-independent (spin-dependent) interactions. For the case of 60 GeV WIMPs, we find that, of the billions of WIMPs passing through a human body per second, roughly ∼10 WIMPs hit one of the nuclei in the human body in an average year, if the scattering is at the maximum consistent with current bounds on WIMP interactions. We also study the 10–20 GeV WIMPs with much larger cross-sections that best fit the DAMA, COGENT, and CRESST data sets and find much higher rates: in this case as many as 105 WIMPs hit a nucleus in the human body in an average year, corresponding to almost one a minute. Though WIMP interactions are a source of radiation in the body, the annual exposure is negligible compared to that from other natural sources (including radon and cosmic rays), and the WIMP collisions are harmless to humans.

Improved determination of the WIMP mass from direct detection data

Direct detection experiments searching for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter typically use a simplified model of the Galactic halo to derive parameter constraints. However, there is strong evidence that this Standard Halo Model is not a good approximation to our Galaxy. We discuss previous attempts to extract the WIMP mass, cross-section and speed distribution from direct detection data and show that these lead to significant biases in the reconstructed parameter values. We develop and test an alternative model-independent method based on parametrising the momentum distribution of the WIMPs. This allows us to limit the analysis only to those regions of momentum space to which the experiments are sensitive. The method can be applied to a single experiment to extract information about the distribution function, as well as information on the degenerate WIMP mass and interaction cross-section combined in a single parameter. This degeneracy can be broken by including data from additional experiments, meaning that the WIMP mass and speed distribution can be recovered. We test the momentum parametrisation method using mock datasets from proposed ton-scale direct detection experiments, showing that it exhibits improved coverage properties over previous methods, as well as significantly reduced bias. We are also able to accurately reconstruct the shape of the WIMP speed distribution but distinguishing between different underlying distributions remains difficult.

New Limits on Interactions between Weakly Interacting Massive Particles and Nucleons Obtained with CsI(Tl) Crystal Detectors

New limits are presented on the cross section for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) nucleon scattering in the KIMS CsI(Tℓ) detector array at the Yangyang Underground Laboratory. The exposure used for these results is 24 524.3 kg·days. Nuclei recoiling from WIMP interactions are identified by a pulse shape discrimination method. A low energy background due to alpha emitters on the crystal surfaces is identified and taken into account in the analysis. The detected numbers of nuclear recoils are consistent with zero and 90% confidence level upper limits on the WIMP interaction rates are set for electron equivalent energies from 3 to 11 keV. The 90% upper limit of the nuclear recoil event rate for 3.6-5.8 keV corresponding to 2-4 keV in NaI(Tℓ) is 0.0098 counts/kg/keV/day, which is below the annual modulation amplitude reported by DAMA. This is incompatible with interpretations that enhance the modulation amplitude such as inelastic dark matter models. We establish the most stringent cross section limits on spin-dependent WIMP-proton elastic scattering for the WIMP masses greater than 20 GeV/c2.

Constraints on low-mass WIMP interactions on 19F from PICASSO

Recent results from the PICASSO dark matter search experiment at SNOLAB are reported. These results were obtained using a subset of 10 detectors with a total target mass of 0.72 kg of 19F and an exposure of 114 kgd. The low backgrounds in PICASSO allow recoil energy thresholds as low as 1.7 keV to be obtained which results in an increased sensitivity to interactions from Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with masses below 10 GeV/c2. No dark matter signal was found. Best exclusion limits in the spin dependent sector were obtained for WIMP masses of 20 GeV/c2 with a cross section on protons of σpSD=0.032 pb (90% C.L.). In the spin independent sector close to the low mass region of 7 GeV/c2 favoured by CoGeNT and DAMA/LIBRA, cross sections larger than σpSI=1.41×10−4 pb (90% C.L.) are excluded.

New measurement of the scintillation efficiency of low-energy nuclear recoils in liquid xenon

Particle detectors that use liquid xenon (LXe) as detection medium are among the leading technologies in the search for dark matter weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). A key enabling element has been the low-energy detection threshold for recoiling nuclei produced by the interaction of WIMPs in LXe targets. In these detectors, the nuclear recoil energy scale is based on the LXe scintillation signal and thus requires knowledge of the relative scintillation efficiency of nuclear recoils, Leff. The uncertainty in Leff at low energies is the largest systematic uncertainty in the reported results from LXe WIMP searches at low masses. In the context of the XENON Dark Matter project, a new LXe scintillation detector has been designed and built specifically for the measurement of Leff at low energies, with an emphasis on maximizing the scintillation light detection efficiency to obtain the lowest possible energy threshold. We report new measurements of Leff at low energies performed with this detector. Our results suggest a Leff which slowly decreases with energy, from 0.144 +/- 0.009 at 15 keV down to 0.088 +0.014 -0.015 at 3 keV.

Dark Matter Search Results from the CDMS II Experiment

Astrophysical observations indicate that dark matter constitutes most of the mass in our universe, but its nature remains unknown. Over the past decade, the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) experiment has provided world-leading sensitivity for the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. The final exposure of our low-temperature germanium particle detectors at the Soudan Underground Laboratory yielded two candidate events, with an expected background of 0.9 +/- 0.2 events. This is not statistically significant evidence for a WIMP signal. The combined CDMS II data place the strongest constraints on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent scattering cross section for a wide range of WIMP masses and exclude new parameter space in inelastic dark matter models.

Direct search for dark matter—striking the balance—and the future

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the main candidates for the relic dark matter (DM). The idea of the direct DM detection relies on elastic spin-dependent (SD) and spin-independent (SI) interaction of WIMPs with target nuclei. In this review paper the relevant formulae for WIMP event rate calculations are collected. For estimations of the WIMP-proton and WIMP-neutron SD and SI cross sections the effective low-energy minimal supersymmetric standard model is used. The traditional one-coupling-dominance approach for evaluation of the exclusion curves is described. Further, the mixed spin-scalar coupling approach is discussed. It is demonstrated, taking the high-spin 73Ge dark matter experiment HDMS as an example, how one can drastically improve the sensitivity of the exclusion curves within the mixed spin-scalar coupling approach, as well as due to a new procedure of background subtraction from the measured spectrum. A general discussion on the information obtained from exclusion curves is given. The necessity of clear WIMP direct detection signatures for a solution of the dark matter problem, is pointed out.