English

Results of a Search for Sub-GeV Dark Matter Using 2013 LUX Data

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2019-10-18 v3 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

The scattering of dark matter (DM) particles with sub-GeV masses off nuclei is difficult to detect using liquid xenon-based DM search instruments because the energy transfer during nuclear recoils is smaller than the typical detector threshold. However, the tree-level DM-nucleus scattering diagram can be accompanied by simultaneous emission of a Bremsstrahlung photon or a so-called "Migdal" electron. These provide an electron recoil component to the experimental signature at higher energies than the corresponding nuclear recoil. The presence of this signature allows liquid xenon detectors to use both the scintillation and the ionization signals in the analysis where the nuclear recoil signal would not be otherwise visible. We report constraints on spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering for DM particles with masses of 0.4-5 GeV/c2^2 using 1.4×104\times10^4 kg\cdotday of search exposure from the 2013 data from the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment for four different classes of mediators. This analysis extends the reach of liquid xenon-based DM search instruments to lower DM masses than has been achieved previously.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1811.11241,
  title  = {Results of a Search for Sub-GeV Dark Matter Using 2013 LUX Data},
  author = {D. S. Akerib and S. Alsum and H. M. Araújo and X. Bai and J. Balajthy and P. Beltrame and E. P. Bernard and A. Bernstein and T. P. Biesiadzinski and E. M. Boulton and B. Boxer and P. Brás and S. Burdin and D. Byram and M. C. Carmona-Benitez and C. Chan and J. E. Cutter and T. J. R. Davison and E. Druszkiewicz and S. R. Fallon and A. Fan and S. Fiorucci and R. J. Gaitskell and J. Genovesi and C. Ghag and M. G. D. Gilchriese and C. Gwilliam and C. R. Hall and S. J. Haselschwardt and S. A. Hertel and D. P. Hogan and M. Horn and D. Q. Huang and C. M. Ignarra and R. G. Jacobsen and O. Jahangir and W. Ji and K. Kamdin and K. Kazkaz and D. Khaitan and R. Knoche and E. V. Korolkova and S. Kravitz and V. A. Kudryavtsev and B. G. Lenardo and K. T. Lesko and J. Liao and J. Lin and A. Lindote and M. I. Lopes and A. Manalaysay and R. L. Mannino and N. Marangou and M. F. Marzioni and D. N. McKinsey and D. -M. Mei and M. Moongweluwan and J. A. Morad and A. St. J. Murphy and A. Naylor and C. Nehrkorn and H. N. Nelson and F. Neves and K. C. Oliver-Mallory and K. J. Palladino and E. K. Pease and Q. Riffard and G. R. C. Rischbieter and C. Rhyne and P. Rossiter and S. Shaw and T. A. Shutt and C. Silva and M. Solmaz and V. N. Solovov and P. Sorensen and T. J. Sumner and M. Szydagis and D. J. Taylor and W. C. Taylor and B. P. Tennyson and P. A. Terman and D. R. Tiedt and W. H. To and M. Tripathi and L. Tvrznikova and U. Utku and S. Uvarov and V. Velan and R. C. Webb and J. T. White and T. J. Whitis and M. S. Witherell and F. L. H. Wolfs and D. Woodward and J. Xu and K. Yazdani and C. Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.11241},
  year   = {2019}
}