On an unverified nuclear decay and its role in the DAMA experiment
arXiv:1210.5501 · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2013.02.033
Abstract
The rate of the direct decay of 40K to the ground state of 40Ar through electron capture has not been experimentally reported. Aside from its inherent importance for the theory of electron capture as the only such decay known of its type (unique third-forbidden), this decay presents an irreducible background in the DAMA experiment. We find that the presence of this background, as well as others, poses a challenge to any interpretation of the DAMA results in terms of a Dark Matter model with a small modulation fraction. A 10ppb contamination of natural potassium requires a 20% modulation fraction or more. A 20ppb contamination, which is reported as an upper limit by DAMA, disfavors any Dark Matter origin of the signal. This conclusion is based on the efficiency of detecting 40K decays as inferred from simulation. We propose measures to help clarify the situation.
8 pages, 3 figures; v2 - published version; results unchanged; an addendum can be found in http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1210.7548
References in corpus (5)
Cited by in corpus (11)
- Characterising dark matter searches at colliders and direct detection experiments: Vector mediators
- The Past and Future of Light Dark Matter Direct Detection
- Analysis of the 40K contamination in NaI(Tl) crystals from different providers in the frame of the ANAIS project
- Making sense of the local Galactic escape speed estimates in direct dark matter searches
- Bulk NaI(Tl) scintillation low energy events selection with the ANAIS-0 module
- Sensitivity of alkali halide scintillating calorimeters with particle identification to investigate the DAMA dark matter detection claim
- Overview of Non-Liquid Noble Direct Detection Dark Matter Experiments
- Comment on "On an unverified nuclear decay and its role in the DAMA experiment" (arXiv:1210.5501)
- A few final comments to arXiv:1210.7548[hep-ph]
- Comparison of DAMA/LIBRA and DM ICE Results using Information Theory to Rule out Dark Matter Claims
- Time-Series Analysis of Reconstructed DAMA Data