We present the results of a search for dark matter weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the mass range below 20  GeV/c^{2} using a target of low-radioactivity argon with a 6786.0 kg d exposure. The data were obtained using the DarkSide-50 apparatus at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The analysis is based on the ionization signal, for which the DarkSide-50 time projection chamber is fully efficient at 0.1  keVee. The observed rate in the detector at 0.5  keVee is about 1.5  event/keVee/kg/d and is almost entirely accounted for by known background sources. We obtain a 90% C.L. exclusion limit above 1.8  GeV/c^{2} for the spin-independent cross section of dark matter WIMPs on nucleons, extending the exclusion region for dark matter below previous limits in the range 1.8-6  GeV/c^{2}.

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We present new constraints on sub-GeV dark-matter particles scattering off electrons based on 6780.0 kg d of data collected with the DarkSide-50 dual-phase argon time projection chamber. This analysis uses electroluminescence signals due to ionized electrons extracted from the liquid argon target. The detector has a very high trigger probability for these signals, allowing for an analysis threshold of three extracted electrons, or approximately 0.05 keVee. We calculate the expected recoil spectra for dark matter-electron scattering in argon and, under the assumption of momentum-independent scattering, improve upon existing limits from XENON10 for dark-matter particles with masses between 30 and 100  MeV/c^{2}.

The DarkSide-50 direct-detection dark matter experiment is a dual-phase argon time projection chamber operating at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. This paper reports on the blind analysis of a (16 660 ± 270) kg d exposure using a target of low-radioactivity argon extracted from underground sources. We find no events in the dark matter selection box and set a 90 % C.L. upper limit on the dark matter-nucleon spin-independent cross section of 1.14 × 10 −44 cm 2 (3.78 × 10 −44 cm 2 , 3.43 × 10 −43 cm 2 ) for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV/c 2 (1 TeV/c 2 , 10 TeV/c 2 ).

We present first significant limits on WIMP dark matter by the phonon-light technique, where combined phonon and light signals from a scintillating cryogenic detector are used. Data from early 2004 with two 300 g CRESST-II prototype detector modules are presented, with a net exposure of 20.5 kg days. The modules consist of a CaWO 4 scintillating "target" crystal and a smaller cryogenic light detector. The combination of phonon and light signals leads to a strong suppression of non-nuclear recoil backgrounds. Using this information to define an acceptance region for nuclear recoils we have 16 events from the two modules, corresponding to a rate for nuclear recoils between 12 and 40 keV of (0.87± 0.22) events/(kg day). This is compatible with the rate expected from neutron background, and most of these events lie in the region of the phonon-light plane anticipated for neutron-induced recoils. A particularly strong limit for WIMPs with coherent scattering results from selecting a region of the phonon-light plane corresponding to tungsten recoils, where the best module shows zero events.