Dark matter direct detection from the single phonon to the nuclear recoil regime

Abstract

In most direct detection experiments, the free nuclear recoil description of dark matter scattering breaks down for masses 100 MeV, or when the recoil energy is comparable to a few times the typical phonon energy. For dark matter lighter than 1 MeV, scattering via excitation of a single phonon dominates and has been computed previously, but for the intermediate mass range or higher detector thresholds, multiphonon processes dominate. We perform the first calculation of the scattering rate via multiphonon production for the entire keV-GeV dark matter mass range, assuming a harmonic crystal target. We provide an analytic description that connects the single phonon, multiphonon, and the nuclear recoil regimes. Our results are implemented in the public package DarkELF.

Detecting Dark Matter Induced Power in Quantum Devices

“…We follow Ref. [11] to compute the energy deposition through single and multiphonon excitation from scattering.…”

“…Here, 𝑓 𝜒 (𝒗) is the Maxwellian DM velocity distribution, 𝜌 𝑇 is the target material density, 𝜎 𝜒 𝑁 is the DM-nucleon scattering cross section, 𝜇 is the reduced mass of the DM-nucleon pair, 𝐹 med (𝑞) is a form factor that depends on the mediator mass, and 𝑆(𝒒, 𝜔 𝒒 ) is the dynamic structure factor that encodes the detector response to DM scattering which we compute analytically. We use the public code DarkELF with appropriate modifications for the thermalized DM parameters and the detector crystal structure [11]. The power injected from DM scattering is computed as follows,…”

Spin-Dependent Scattering of Scalar and Vector Dark Matter on the Electron

“…This approximation is a suitable method when the collision time is much shorter than the ionization of the target atom. Details of the condition and the comparison with the Born approximation can be found in [36][37][38][39]. As mentioned previously, the detailed calculations of the scattering are divided into the SI and SD cases.…”

Light dark matter detection: New ideas and new tools

“…Following stringent constraints on heavy WIMPs [e.g., [1][2][3][4][5], there is now increasing interest in models for sub-GeV dark matter [e.g., [6][7][8], motivating new detection ideas. In particular, dark matter candidates in the keV to GeV range cannot release appreciable energy via standard nuclear recoil, and thus require detectors with low energy thresholds, such as semiconductors [e.g., [10][11][12], superconductors [e.g., [13][14][15], lower dimensional materials [e.g., 16,17], and so on [e.g., [18][19][20].…”