Related papers: WIMP direct detection and halo structure
Multi-component dark matter particles may have a more intricate direct detection signal than simple elastic scattering on nuclei. In a broad class of well-motivated models the inelastic excitation of dark matter particles is followed by…
Dark matter particles populating our galactic halo could be directly detected by measuring their scattering off target nuclei or electrons in a suitable detector. As this interaction is expected to occur with very low probability and would…
The differential event rate for direct detection of dark matter, both the time averaged and the modulated one due to the motion of the Earth, are discussed. The calculations focus on relatively light cold dark matter candidates (WIMP) and…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the main candidates for the relic dark matter (DM). The idea of the direct DM detection relies on elastic spin-dependent (SD) and spin-independent (SI) interaction of WIMPs with target…
Mica can store (for >1 Gy) etchable tracks caused by atoms recoiling from WIMPs. Ancient mica is a directional detector despite the complex motions it makes with respect to the WIMP "wind". We can exploit the properties of directionality…
Among the many experimental techniques available, those providing directional information have the potential of yielding an unambiguous observation of WIMPs even in the presence of insidious backgrounds. A measurement of the distribution of…
Assuming for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) a Maxwellian velocity distribution in the Galaxy we provide an assessment of the sensitivity of existing Dark Matter (DM) direct detection (DD) experiments to operators up to…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) continue to be considered some of the best-motivated Dark Matter (DM) candidates. No conclusive signal, despite an extensive search program that combines, often in a complementary way, direct,…
For many working in particle physics and cosmology successful discovery and characterisation of the new particles that most likely explain the non-baryonic cold dark matter, known to comprise the majority of matter in the Universe, would be…
Light WIMPs are dark matter particle candidates with weak scale interaction with the known particles, and mass in the GeV to 10's of GeV range. Hints of light WIMPs have appeared in several dark matter searches in the last decade. The…
In this talk I have presented the data analysis results of extracting properties of halo WIMPs: the mass and the (ratios between the) spin-independent and spin-dependent couplings/cross sections on nucleons by the AMIDAS website. Although…
The DAMA/NaI Collaboration has observed a 4-sigma C.L. model independent effect investigating the annual modulation signature in the counting rate of an NaI(Tl) set-up (total exposure of 57986 kg day) and the implications of this effect…
The existence of dark matter was suggested, using simple gravitational arguments, seventy years ago. Although we are now convinced that most of the mass in the Universe is indeed some non-luminous matter, we still do not know its…
Terrestrial dark matter detection experiments probe the velocity-space distribution of dark matter particles in the vicinity of the Earth. We present a novel method, to be used in conjunction with standard cosmological simulations of…
A light scalar WIMP is studied in view of the recent results of the DAMA collaboration. In a scenario where both the WIMP's annihilation and its elastic scattering on nuclei occur dominantly through Higgs exchange, a one-to-one relation…
Dark matter is one of the most important open problems in particle physics and cosmology. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) appear as an appealing solution, providing the right relic density with a cross-section at the…
We propose a method using solid state detectors with directional sensitivity to dark matter interactions to detect low-mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) originating from galactic sources. In spite of a large body of…
More and more claims of having detected WIMP dark matter are being put forward. Some are discussed here, stressing the importance of exploiting distinctive signatures to ascertain their WIMP origin. The best signals for WIMP discovery are…
We extend the halo-independent method to compare direct dark matter detection data, so far used only for spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interactions, to any type of interaction. As an example we apply the method to magnetic moment…
The direct detection of dark matter constituents, in particular the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), is central to particle physics and cosmology. In this paper we study WIMP induced transitions from isomeric nuclear states for…