Related papers: Low-Energy Compton Scattering in Materials
An important source of background in direct searches for low-mass dark matter particles are the energy deposits by small-angle scattering of environmental $\gamma$ rays. We report detailed measurements of low-energy spectra from Compton…
Diverse searches for direct dark matter (DM) in effective electromagnetic and leptophilic interactions resulting from new physics, as well as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with unconventional electronic recoils, are…
In the present work, we study the atomic Compton Scattering which could have great impacts on dark matter direct detection experiments. We give a quantitative analysis of the Compton scattering energy spectrum for Si and Ge atomic systems.…
The scattering of sub-GeV dark matter in direct detection experiments happens at characteristic wavelengths comparable or larger than the interparticle spacing. Collective effects in the target material must therefore be accounted for when…
Low-energy background through Compton scattering from the ambient $\gamma$ rays can be contaminated in direct dark matter search experiments. In this paper, we report comparable measurements on low-energy spectra via Compton scattering from…
Proposed dark matter detectors with eV-scale sensitivities will detect a large background of atomic (nuclear) recoils from coherent photon scattering. This background climbs steeply below $\sim10$~eVnr, far exceeding the declining rate of…
Direct detection strategies are proposed for dark matter particles with MeV to GeV mass. In this largely unexplored mass range, dark matter scattering with electrons can cause single-electron ionization signals, which are detectable with…
A number of direct detection experiments are searching for electron excitations created by scattering of sub-GeV dark matter. We present an alternate formulation of dark matter-electron scattering in terms of the dielectric response of a…
Experiments aiming to directly detect dark matter through particle recoils can achieve energy thresholds of $\mathcal{O}(1\,\mathrm{eV})$. In this regime, ionization signals from small-angle Compton scatters of environmental $\gamma$-rays…
Dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range is a theoretically motivated but largely unexplored paradigm. Such light masses are out of reach for conventional nuclear recoil direct detection experiments, but may be detected through the small…
Low-threshold dark matter detectors, in particular cryogenic detectors based on dielectric materials, are among the best tools for probing sub-GeV dark matter masses. In the coming years detectors of this type will become sensitive to solar…
We present new constraints on sub-GeV dark matter particles scattering off electrons in argon based on an analysis of ionization signal data from the DarkSide-50 detector.
Compton scattering is one of the few spectroscopies which directly probes the ground state momentum density in materials. Recent progress in synchrotron light sources has brought a renewed interest in the technique as a tool for…
High-energy photons with $\mathcal{O}$(MeV) energies from radioactive contaminants can scatter in a solid-state target material and constitute an important low-energy background for sub-GeV dark matter direct-detection searches. This…
Direct detection experiments are gaining in mass reach. Here we show that the inclusion of dark Compton scattering, which has typically been neglected in absorption searches, has a substantial impact on the reach and discovery potential of…
The sub-keV mass range has long posed a challenge for the direct detection of dark matter via elastic scattering. In this Letter, we propose a new mechanism in which dark matter, assumed to be quadratically coupled to SM particles, scatters…
We describe a novel search for MeV-to-GeV-mass dark matter, in which the dark matter scatters off electrons in a scintillating target. The excitation and subsequent de-excitation of the electron produces one or more photons, which could be…
We consider direct-detection searches for sub-GeV dark matter via electron scatterings in the presence of large interactions between dark and ordinary matter. Scatterings both on electrons and nuclei in the Earth's crust, atmosphere, and…
These lectures give a pedagogical introduction to real and virtual Compton scattering at low energies. We will first discuss real Compton scattering off a point particle as well as a composite system in the framework of nonrelativistic…
One of the next frontiers in dark-matter direct-detection experiments is to explore the MeV to GeV mass regime. Such light dark matter does not carry enough kinetic energy to produce an observable nuclear recoil, but it can scatter off…