Galactic geology: Probing time-varying dark matter signals with paleodetectors

Baum, Sebastian; DeRocco, William; Edwards, T.; Kalia, Saarik

doi:10.1103/physrevd.104.123015

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 160 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Unlike conventional experiments which measure nuclear recoils in real time, paleodetectors measure the number of events integrated over the age of the mineral, reaching up to a billion years for minerals routinely found on Earth. The sources of the keVscale nuclear recoils which can be recovered as tracks is rich, including atmospheric neutrinos [289], solar neutrinos [290], supernova neutrinos [291], as well as dark matter [292,293]. Low-energy neutrino and dark matter tracks are initiated dominantly via CEνNS (quasi-elastic charged-current interactions are more applicable for high-energy neutrinos).…”

Section: Dark Matter and Ceνns Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: Terrestrial and astrophysical applications

Abdullah¹,

Abele²,

Akimov³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) is a process in which neutrinos scatter on a nucleus which acts as a single particle. Though the total cross section is large by neutrino standards, CEνNS has long proven difficult to detect, since the deposited energy into the nucleus is ∼ keV. In 2017, the COHERENT collaboration announced the detection of CEνNS using a stopped-pion source with CsI detectors, followed up the detection of CEνNS using an Ar target. The detection of CEνNS has spawned a flurry of activities in high-energy physics, inspiring new constraints on beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics, and new experimental methods. The CEνNS process has important implications for not only high-energy physics, but also astrophysics, nuclear physics, and beyond. This whitepaper discusses the scientific importance of CEνNS, highlighting how present experiments such as COHERENT are informing theory, and also how future experiments will provide a wealth of information across the aforementioned fields of physics.

show abstract

Section: Dark Matter and Ceνns Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: Terrestrial and astrophysical applications

Abdullah¹,

Abele²,

Akimov³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Results from the first cryogenic detector with diamond as absorber have been recently presented, reaching an energy threshold as low as 16.8 eV [114]. • In the so-called paleo-detectors, persistent traces left by DM interaction in ancient minerals could be searched for profiting from a large integration time [115,116,117,118,119]. Different readout scenarios are considered to achieve nm resolution.…”

Section: New Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review on dark matter searches

Cebrián

2023

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dark matter particles populating our galactic halo could be directly detected by measuring their scattering off target nuclei or electrons in a suitable detector. As this interaction is expected to occur with very low probability and would generate very small energy deposits, the detection is challenging; the possible identification of distinctive signatures (like an annual modulation in the interaction rates or directionality) to assign a dark matter origin to a possible observation is being considered. Here, the physics case of different dark matter direct detection experiments will be presented and the different and complementary techniques which are being applied or considered will be discussed, summarizing their features and latest results obtained. Special focus will be made on TPC-related projects; experiments using noble liquids have presently a leading role to constrain interaction cross sections of a wide range of dark matter candidates and gaseous detectors are very promising to explore specifically low mass dark matter as well as to measure directionality.

show abstract

“…Samples of different ages can be used to explore the sensitivity of paleo-detectors to time-dependent signals. For instance, the Solar System could have traversed some denser region of the DM halo during its past few revolutions around our Galaxy [84]. Time-dependent neutrino signals may also arise from the evolution of our Sun [78], the Galactic supernova rate [76], or the flux of cosmic rays hitting Earth's atmosphere [77].…”

Section: Sensitivity Forecastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, while conventional direct detection experiments measure events in real time, paleo-detectors integrate over timescales up to O(1) Gyr, comparable to the age of the Solar System, t ∼ 4.5 Gyr, and the orbital period of the Solar System around the Milky Way, T ∼ 250 Myr. Using a series of samples with different ages, paleo-detectors offer a unique pathway to gaining information about a signal's time-evolution over Gyr timescales [76][77][78]84].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Projections for Dark Matter Searches with Paleo-Detectors

Baum,

Edwards,

Freese

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Paleo-detectors are a proposed experimental technique to search for dark matter (DM). In lieu of the conventional approach of operating a tonne-scale real-time detector to search for DM-induced nuclear recoils, paleo-detectors take advantage of small samples of naturally occurring rocks on Earth that have been deep underground ( 5 km), accumulating nuclear damage tracks from recoiling nuclei for O(1) Gyr. Modern microscopy techniques promise the capability to read out nuclear damage tracks with nanometer resolution in macroscopic samples. Thanks to their O(1) Gyr integration times, paleo-detectors could constitute nuclear recoil detectors with keV recoil energy thresholds and 100 kilotonne-yr exposures. This combination would allow paleo-detectors to probe DM-nucleon cross sections orders of magnitude below existing upper limits from conventional direct detection experiments. In this article, we use improved background modeling and a new spectral analysis technique to update the sensitivity forecast for paleo-detectors. We demonstrate the robustness of the sensitivity forecast to the (lack of) ancillary measurements of the age of the samples and the parameters controlling the backgrounds, systematic mismodeling of the spectral shape of the backgrounds, and the radiopurity of the mineral samples. Specifically, we demonstrate that even if the uranium concentration in paleo-detector samples is 10 −8 (per weight), many orders of magnitude larger than what we expect in the most radiopure samples obtained from ultra basic rock or marine evaporite deposits, paleodetectors could still probe DM-nucleon cross sections below current limits. For DM masses 10 GeV/c 2 , the sensitivity of paleo-detectors could still reach down all the way to the conventional neutrino floor in a Xe-based direct detection experiment.

show abstract

Galactic geology: Probing time-varying dark matter signals with paleodetectors

Cited by 7 publications

References 160 publications

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: Terrestrial and astrophysical applications

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: Terrestrial and astrophysical applications

Review on dark matter searches

New Projections for Dark Matter Searches with Paleo-Detectors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About