Electron-interacting dark matter: Implications from DAMA/LIBRA-phase2 and prospects for liquid xenon detectors and NaI detectors

Abstract

We investigate the possibility for the direct detection of low mass (GeV scale) WIMP dark matter in scintillation experiments. Such WIMPs are typically too light to leave appreciable nuclear recoils, but may be detected via their scattering off atomic electrons. In particular, the DAMA Collaboration [R. Bernabei et al., Nucl. Phys. At. Energy 19, 307 (2018)] has recently presented strong evidence of an annual modulation in the scintillation rate observed at energies as low as 1 keV. Despite a strong enhancement in the calculated event rate at low energies, we find that an interpretation in terms of electron-interacting WIMPs cannot be consistent with existing constraints. We also demonstrate the importance of correct treatment of the atomic wavefunctions, and show the resulting event rate is very sensitive to the low-energy performance of the detectors, meaning it is crucial that the detector uncertainties be taken into account. Finally, we demonstrate that the potential scintillation event rate can be much larger than may otherwise be expected, meaning that competitive searches can be performed for GeV scale WIMPs using the conventional prompt S1 scintillation signals. This is important given the recent and upcoming very large liquid xenon detectors.

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• Electric But Not Eclectic: Thermal Relic Dark Matter for the XENON1T Excess
• Radial Oscillations of Dark Matter admixed Neutron Stars
• Muon $(g-2)$ and XENON1T Excess with Boosted Dark Matter in $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$ Model
• Inelastic Fermion Dark Matter Origin of XENON1T Excess with Muon $(g-2)$ and Light Neutrino Mass
• Hydrogen portal to exotic radioactivity
• Projected sensitivities of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment to new physics via low-energy electron recoils
• On-shell mediator dark matter models and the Xenon1T anomaly
• Self-interacting Inelastic Dark Matter in the light of XENON1T excess
• Collider Constraints on a Dark Matter Interpretation of the XENON1T Excess
• Sun Heated MeV-scale Dark Matter and the XENON1T Electron Recoil Excess
• Xenon1T excess from electron recoils of non-relativistic Dark Matter
• Implications of the XENON1T Excess on the Dark Matter Interpretation
• Shedding New Light on Sterile Neutrinos from XENON1T Experiment
• Constraints from a many-body method on spin-independent dark matter scattering off electrons using data from germanium and xenon detectors
• Dark matter models for the 511 keV galactic line predict keV electron recoils on Earth
• Impact of loop-induced processes on the boosted dark matter interpretation of the XENON1T excess
• Dark Matter, Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment and the XENON1T Excess
• EFT Approach of Inelastic Dark Matter for Xenon Electron Recoil Detection
• Boosted Self-Interacting Dark Matter and XENON1T Excess
• Xenon-1T excess as a possible signal of a sub-GeV hidden sector dark matter
• EFT Interpretation of XENON1T Electron Recoil Excess: Neutrinos and Dark Matter
• Fuelling the search for light dark matter-electron scattering with spherical proportional counters
• Revisiting general dark matter-bound-electron interactions
• Spin-dependent dark matter-electron interactions
• Earth Shielding and Daily Modulation from Electrophilic Boosted Dark Particles
• Accurate electron-recoil ionization factors for dark matter direct detection in xenon, krypton and argon
• Resolving XENON Excess With Decaying Cold Dark Matter
• Boosted dark matter from a phantom fluid
• Connecting Low scale Seesaw for Neutrino Mass to Inelastic sub-GeV Dark Matter with Abelian Gauge Symmetry
• Relativistic Impulse Approximation in the Atomic Ionization Process induced by Millicharged Particles
• Migdal-type effect in the dark matter absorption process
• Probing Light Inelastic Dark Matter from Direct Detection
• Dark Matter Annual Modulation Analysis with Combined Nuclear and Electron Recoil Channels
• Constraints on sub-GeV dark matter scattering on electrons with COSINE-100