Impact of uncertainties in the halo velocity profile on direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter

Abstract

We use the state-of-the-art high-resolution cosmological simulations by IllustrisTNG to derive the velocity distribution and local density of dark matter in galaxies like our Milky Way and find a substantial spread in both quantities. Next we use our findings to examine the sensitivity to the dark matter velocity profile of underground searches using electron scattering in germanium and silicon targets. We find that sub-GeV dark matter search is strongly affected by these uncertainties, unlike nuclear recoil searches for heavier dark matter, especially in multiple electron-hole modes, for which the sensitivity to the scattering cross-section is also weaker. Therefore, by improving the sensitivity to lower ionization thresholds not only projected sensitivities will be boosted but also the dependence on the astrophysical uncertainties will become significantly reduced.

13 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Halo uncertainties in electron recoil events at direct detection experiments
• Dark Matter Velocity Distributions for Direct Detection: Astrophysical Uncertainties are Smaller Than They Appear
• Freezing In with Lepton Flavored Fermions
• Information divergences to parametrize astrophysical uncertainties in dark matter direct detection
• How to Build an Empirical Speed Distribution for Dark Matter in the Solar Neighborhood
• On the dark matter origin of an LDMX signal