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The elastic scattering of an atomic nucleus plays a central role in dark matter direct detection experiments. In those experiments, it is usually assumed that the atomic electrons around the nucleus of the target material immediately follow…
Nuclear scattering events with large momentum transfer in atomic, molecular, or solid-state systems may result in electronic excitations. In the context of atomic scattering by dark matter (DM), this is known as the Migdal effect, but the…
When a nucleus in an atom undergoes a collision, there is a small probability to inelastically excite an electron as a result of the Migdal effect. In this Letter, we present a first complete derivation of the Migdal effect from dark…
Dark matter scattering off a nucleus has a small probability of inducing an observable ionization through the inelastic excitation of an electron, called the Migdal effect. We use an effective field theory to extend the computation of the…
There are currently several existing and proposed experiments designed to probe sub-GeV dark matter (DM) using electron ionization in various materials. The projected signal rates for these experiments assume that this ionization yield…
The Migdal effect in semiconductors, prompt ionization from a primary nuclear scattering event, can be described across all kinematic regimes using an effective field theory that encodes the complex vibrational and electronic degrees of…
We present the Migdal In Galactic Dark mAtter expLoration (MIGDAL) experiment aiming at the unambiguous observation and study of the so-called Migdal effect induced by fast-neutron scattering. It is hoped that this elusive atomic process…
Recent studies have theoretically investigated the atomic excitation and ionization induced by the dark matter (DM)-nucleus scattering, and it is found that the suddenly recoiled atom is much more likely to excite or lose its electrons than…
The Migdal effect is a key inelastic signal channel which could be used to detect low-mass dark matter, but it has never been observed experimentally using Standard Model probes. Here we propose a conceptual design for an experiment which…
The electron ionization predicted by the Migdal effect in dark matter-nucleus scattering enhances experimental sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter. In this work, we demonstrate that lower-energy electron excitations provide a novel and…
Neutrino-nucleus scatterings in the detector could induce electron ionization signatures due to the Migdal effect. We derive prospects for a future detection of the Migdal effect via coherent elastic solar neutrino-nucleus scatterings in…
In recent years, dark matter direct detection experiments have spurred interest in the Migdal effect, where it is employed to extend their sensitivity to lower dark matter masses. Given the lack of observation of the Migdal effect, the…
In this work, we introduce the theoretical framework of the phonon-mediated Migdal effect for neutrino-nucleus scattering in semiconductors, considering both the Standard Model and the presence of the neutrino magnetic moment. We calculate…
The Migdal effect predicts that a nuclear recoil interaction can be accompanied by atomic ionization, allowing many dark matter direct detection experiments to gain sensitivity to sub-GeV masses. We report the first direct search for the…
Migdal effect is attracting interests because of the potential to enhance the sensitivities of direct dark matter searches to the low mass region. In spite of its great importance, the Migdal effect has not been experimentally observed yet.…
The Migdal effect has received much attention from the dark matter direct detection community, in particular due to its power in setting limits on sub-GeV particle dark matter. Currently, there is no experimental confirmation of the Migdal…
A key strategy for the direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter is to search for small ionization signals. These can arise from dark matter-electron scattering or when the dark matter-nucleus scattering process is accompanied by a "Migdal"…
It has been recently predicted theoretically that due to nuclear motion light and heavy hydrogen molecules exposed to strong electric field should exhibit substantially different tunneling ionization rates (O.I. Tolstikhin, H.J. Worner and…
Dark matter direct detection experiments have limited sensitivity to light dark matter (below a few GeV), due to the challenges of lowering energy thresholds for the detection of nuclear recoil to below $\mathcal{O}(\mathrm{keV})$. While…
The effect pointed out by A. B. Migdal in the 40's (hereafter named Migdal effect) has so far been usually neglected in the direct searches for WIMP Dark Matter candidates. This effect consists in the ionization and the excitation of bound…