Surface roughness interpretation of 730 kg days CRESST-II results

Abstract

The analysis presented in the recent publication of the CRESST-II results finds a statistically significant excess of registered events over known background contributions in the acceptance region and attributes the excess to a possible Dark Matter signal, caused by scattering of relatively light WIMPs. We propose a mechanism which explains the excess events with ion sputtering caused by 206Pb recoils and alpha particles from 210Po decay, combined with realistic surface roughness effects.

15 pages, 6 figures. v2: corrected quenching factor discussion. v3: corrected references. v4: added references

References in corpus (3)

• First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment
• Commissioning Run of the CRESST-II Dark Matter Search
• Interpretation of Light-Quenching Factor Measurements

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Characterising dark matter searches at colliders and direct detection experiments: Vector mediators
• Daily Modulation as a Smoking Gun of Dark Matter with Significant Stopping
• The Past and Future of Light Dark Matter Direct Detection
• Bulk NaI(Tl) scintillation low energy events selection with the ANAIS-0 module
• Performance of a CRESST-II Detector Module with True $4\pi$-veto