Results on photon-mediated dark matter-nucleus interactions from the PICO-60 C$_{3}$F$_{8}$ bubble chamber

Abstract

Many compelling models predict dark matter coupling to the electromagnetic current through higher multipole interactions, while remaining electrically neutral. Different multipole couplings have been studied, among them anapole moment, electric and magnetic dipole moments, and millicharge. This study sets limits on the couplings for these photon-mediated interactions using nonrelativistic contact operators in an effective field theory framework. Using data from the PICO-60 bubble chamber leading limits for dark matter masses between 2.7 GeV/c 2 and 24 GeV/c 2 are reported for the coupling of these photon-mediated dark matter-nucleus interactions. The detector was filled with 52 kg of C3F8 operating at thermodynamic thresholds of 2.45 keV and 3.29 keV, reaching exposures of 1404 kg-day and 1167 kg-day, respectively.

Review on dark matter searches

“…Merging PICASSO and COUPP collaborations, PICO has operated a series of bubble chambers at SNOLAB. In PICO-60, with 52 kg of C 3 F 8 a 2.45 keV threshold for nuclear recoils was achieved and the best SD WIMP-proton limit from direct detection has been derived [64]; results on photon-mediated DM-nucleus interactions have been recently derived too [65]. Some changes in the design, like the buffer-free concept [66] ANAIS-112 [78] and COSINE-100 [82] experiments in the energy regions of 1-6 keV ee and 2-6 keV ee .…”

Troubles mounting for multipolar dark matter

“…However, due to the momentum dependence of the couplings and the low ambient velocity of the DM in our neighbourhood, the direct detection bounds are softer. Direct detection limits from the PICO-60, XENON-1T and other detectors have been discussed in [35][36][37][38][39]. In this article, we update the direct detection limits for anapole and dipole DM models using the most recent published results from DarkSide-50 [40] and LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) [41].…”