Model-independent comparison of annual modulation and total rate with direct detection experiments

Abstract

The relative sensitivity of different direct detection experiments depends sensitively on the astrophysical distribution and particle physics nature of dark matter, prohibiting a model-independent comparison. The situation changes fundamentally if two experiments employ the same target material. We show that in this case one can compare measurements of an annual modulation and exclusion bounds on the total rate while making no assumptions on astrophysics and no (or only very general) assumptions on particle physics. In particular, we show that the dark matter interpretation of the DAMA/LIBRA signal can be conclusively tested with COSINUS, a future experiment employing the same target material. We find that if COSINUS excludes a dark matter scattering rate of about $0.01{\text{kg}}^{-1}{\text{days}}^{-1}$ with an energy threshold of $1.8$keV and resolution of $0.2$keV, it will rule out all explanations of DAMA/LIBRA in terms of dark matter scattering off sodium and/or iodine.

27 pages, 9 figures. v2: references added; v3: discussion of new DAMA results with lower threshold added; v4: matches published version

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Cited by in corpus (21)

• Dark Matter through the Higgs portal
• The Waning of the WIMP: Endgame?
• DAMA/LIBRA-phase2 in WIMP effective models
• Present and projected sensitivities of Dark Matter direct detection experiments to effective WIMP-nucleus couplings
• Direct Detection of Dark Matter -- APPEC Committee Report
• Improved model-dependent corollary analyses after the first six annual cycles of DAMA/LIBRA-phase2
• Probing DAMA/LIBRA in the full parameter space of WIMP effective models of inelastic scattering
• Time-dependent rate of multicomponent dark matter: Reproducing the DAMA/LIBRA phase-2 results
• Robust model comparison tests of DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation
• Deep-underground dark matter search with a COSINUS detector prototype
• Proton-philic spin-dependent inelastic Dark Matter (pSIDM) as a viable explanation of DAMA/LIBRA-phase2
• Simulation-based design study for the passive shielding of the COSINUS dark matter experiment
• Inelastic Dark Matter and the SABRE Experiment
• Particle discrimination in a NaI crystal using the COSINUS remote TES design
• Neutron EDM constrains direct dark matter detection prospects
• The role of small scale experiments in the direct detection of dark matter
• Investigation of the cryogenic scintillation of pure and doped sodium-iodine
• A DAMA/Libra-phase2 analysis in terms of WIMP-quark and WIMP-gluon effective interactions up to dimension seven
• Water Cherenkov muon veto for the COSINUS experiment: design and simulation optimization
• Defect Formation in NaI Crystals: A Novel Pathway to Dark Matter Detection
• Reflections on the search for particle dark matter by direct experiments