First Nuclear Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter Search in Argon Time Projection Chambers with the DarkSide-50 Experiment
High Energy Physics - Experiment
2026-02-11 v1
Abstract
We report the first search for nuclear ultra-heavy dark matter (UHDM) in a dual-phase liquid argon time projection chamber using the DarkSide-50 experiment. Unlike conventional weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), nuclear UHDM candidates may be composed of many dark nucleons and scatter numerous times while passing through the detector. Accounting for energy loss through the Earth's overburden, we apply selection criteria optimized for multi-scatter event topologies using the 532-day low-radiation campaign of the DarkSide-50 detector. Excluded limits on the UHDM-nucleon scattering cross section for dark nucleon masses of are presented.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.09421,
title = {First Nuclear Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter Search in Argon Time Projection Chambers with the DarkSide-50 Experiment},
author = {P. Agnes and I. F. Albuquerque and T. Alexander and A. K. Alton and M. Ave and H. O. Back and G. Batignani and K. Biery and V. Bocci and W. M. Bonivento and B. Bottino and S. Bussino and M. Cadeddu and M. Cadoni and F. Calaprice and A. Caminata and M. D. Campos and N. Canci and M. Caravati and N. Cargioli and M. Cariello and M. Carlini and P. Cavalcante and S. Chashin and A. Chepurnov and D. D'Angelo and S. Davini and S. De Cecco and A. V. Derbin and M. D'Incecco and C. Dionisi and F. Dordei and M. Downing and M. Fairbairn and G. Fiorillo and D. Franco and F. Gabriele and C. Galbiati and C. Ghiano and C. Giganti and G. K. Giovanetti and V. Goicoechea Casanueva and A. M. Goretti and G. Grilli di Cortona and A. Grobov and M. Gromov and M. Guam and M. Gulino and B. R. Hackett and K. Herner and T. Hessel and F. Hubaut and E. V. Hungerford and A. Ianni and V. Ippolito and K. Keeter and C. L. Kendziora and M. Kimura and I. Kochanek and D. Korablev and G. Korga and A. Kubankin and J. Kumar and M. Kuss and M. La Commara and M. Lai and X. Li and M. Lissia and O. Lychagina and I. N. Machulin and L. P. Mapelli and S. M. Mari and J. Maricic and A. Messina and R. Milincic and J. Monroe and M. Morrocchi and V. N. Muratova and P. Musico and A. O. Nozdrina and A. Oleinik and F. Ortica and L. Pagani and M. Pallavicini and L. Pandola and E. Pantic and E. Paoloni and K. Pelczar and N. Pelliccia and S. Piacentini and A. Pocar and M. Poehlmann and S. Pordes and S. S. Poudel and P. Pralavorio and D. Price and F. Ragusa and M. Razeti and A. L. Renshaw and M. Rescigno and A. Romani and D. Sablone and O. Samoylov and S. Sanfilippo and C. Savarese and B. Schlitzer and D. A. Semenov and A. Shchagin and A. Sheshukov and M. D. Skorokhvatov and O. Smirnov and A. Sotnikov and S. Stracka and Y. Suvorov and R. Tartaglia and G. Testera and A. Tonazzo and E. V. Unzhakov and A. Vishneva and R. B. Vogelaar and M. Wada and H. Wang and Y. Wang and S. Westerdale and M. M. Wojcik and X. Xiao and C. Yang and G. Zuzel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.09421},
year = {2026}
}