Phonon-mediated Migdal effect in semiconductor detectors

Abstract

The Migdal effect inside detectors provides a new possibility of probing the sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles. While there has been well-established methods treating the Migdal effect in isolated atoms, a coherent and complete description of the valence electrons in semiconductor is still absent. The bremstrahlung-like approach is a promising attempt, but it turns invalid for DM masses below a few tens of MeV. In this paper, we lay out a framework where phonon is chosen as an effective degree of freedom to describe the Migdal effect in semiconductors. In this picture, a valence electron is excited to the conduction state via exchange of a virtual phonon, accompanied by a multi-phonon process triggered by an incident DM particle. Under the incoherent approximation, it turns out that this approach can effectively push the sensitivities of the semiconductor targets further down to the MeV DM mass region.

arXiv commentIn the previous version, the $T_0$ term is omitted in the numerical implementation of Eq.(3.4). In this version, the $T_0$ term is included, and it is found that the Migdal event rates calculated from the phonon-mediated approach and the impulse approximation coincide quite well even in the low DM mass range

References in corpus (54)

• Direct Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• First Direct Detection Limits on sub-GeV Dark Matter from XENON10
• New Constraints and Prospects for sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering off Electrons in Xenon
• Migdal Effect in Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Search for Light Dark Matter Interactions Enhanced by the Migdal effect or Bremsstrahlung in XENON1T
• Superconducting Detectors for Super Light Dark Matter
• Detection of sub-MeV Dark Matter with Three-Dimensional Dirac Materials
• First germanium-based constraints on sub-MeV Dark Matter with the EDELWEISS experiment
• Detecting Superlight Dark Matter with Fermi-Degenerate Materials
• Detection of Light Dark Matter With Optical Phonons in Polar Materials
• Semiconductor Probes of Light Dark Matter
• Absorption of light dark matter in semiconductors
• Directional Detection of Dark Matter with Two-Dimensional Targets
• Searching for Dark Absorption with Direct Detection Experiments
• Direct Detection of sub-GeV Dark Matter with Scintillating Targets
• Detecting Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter via Absorption in Superconductors
• Probing sub-GeV Dark Matter with conventional detectors
• Directional Detection of Light Dark Matter with Polar Materials
• Directly detecting sub-GeV dark matter with electrons from nuclear scattering
• On the relation between Migdal effect and dark matter-electron scattering in isolated atoms and semiconductors
• Modulation Effects in Dark Matter-Electron Scattering Experiments
• Constraints on Spin-Independent Nucleus Scattering with sub-GeV Weakly Interacting Massive Particle Dark Matter from the CDEX-1B Experiment at the China Jin-Ping Laboratory
• Light Dark Matter in Superfluid Helium: Detection with Multi-excitation Production
• Atomic responses to general dark matter-electron interactions
• Multi-Channel Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter: Theoretical Framework
• SiC Detectors for Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• Dirac Materials for Sub-MeV Dark Matter Detection: New Targets and Improved Formalism
• Direct Detection of Light Dark Matter and Solar Neutrinos via Color Center Production in Crystals
• The Migdal effect in semiconductors
• The Migdal Effect and Photon Bremsstrahlung in effective field theories of dark matter direct detection and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detection with Electron Recoils in Carbon Nanotubes
• DarkELF: A python package for dark matter scattering in dielectric targets
• Detecting Light Dark Matter with Magnons
• Dark matter-electron scattering in dielectrics
• Resonant absorption of bosonic dark matter in molecules
• Searches for light dark matter using condensed matter systems
• Directional Dark Matter Detection in Anisotropic Dirac Materials
• Detection of sub-GeV Dark Matter and Solar Neutrinos via Chemical-Bond Breaking
• Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection With Collective Excitations
• Migdal effect and photon Bremsstrahlung: improving the sensitivity to light dark matter of liquid argon experiments
• Multiphonon excitations from dark matter scattering in crystals
• Sub-MeV Dark Matter and the Goldstone Modes of Superfluid Helium
• Directional Sensitivity In Light-Mass Dark Matter Searches With Single-Electron Resolution Ionization Detectors
• Model-independent determination of the Migdal effect via photoabsorption
• Prospects of Migdal Effect in the Explanation of XENON1T Electron Recoil Excess
• Describing the Migdal effect with a bremsstrahlung-like process and many-body effects
• Direct Detection of Spin-Dependent Sub-GeV Dark Matter via Migdal Effect
• Dark Matter, Dark Photon and Superfluid He-4 from Effective Field Theory
• Describing Migdal effects in diamond crystal with atom-centered localized Wannier functions
• Dark Matter Direct Detection in Materials with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Projected sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter of next-generation semiconductor detectors
• Velocity Dependent Dark Matter Interactions in Single-Electron Resolution Semiconductor Detectors with Directional Sensitivity
• The wavefunction reconstruction effects in calculation of DM-induced electronic transition in semiconductor targets
• Direct detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter via 3-body Inelastic Scattering Process

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Precise predictions and new insights for atomic ionisation from the Migdal effect
• Dark matter direct detection from the single phonon to the nuclear recoil regime
• The Migdal Effect in Semiconductors for Dark Matter with Masses below $\sim$100 MeV
• The Molecular Migdal Effect
• Measuring the Migdal effect in semiconductors for dark matter detection
• Optimal anti-ferromagnets for light dark matter detection
• On the impact of the Migdal effect in reactor CE$\nu$NS experiments
• Probing Dark Matter Electromagnetic Properties in Direct Detection Experiments
• Measuring the molecular Migdal effect with neutron scattering on diatomic gases
• Charge transport in chiral solids as a possible tool in search of dark matter signals
• The Migdal effect in solid crystals and the role of non-adiabaticity
• Comparison of the Migdal transition probabilities in electron-atom inelastic cross sections