An experiment to search for dark matter interactions using sodium iodide detectors
Abstract
Observations of galaxies and primordial radiation suggest that the Universe is made mostly of non-luminous dark matter. Several types of new fundamental particles have been proposed as candidates for dark matter such as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) but no definitive signal has been seen despite concerted efforts by many collaborations. One exception is the much-debated claim by the DAMA collaboration of a statistically significant annual modulation in the event rate of their experiment with a period and phase consistent with that expected from WIMP dark matter. Several groups have been working to develop experiments with the aim of reproducing DAMA's results using the same target medium. Here we report results from the initial operation of the COSINE-100 experiment. COSINE-100 uses sodium iodide as the target medium-the same medium as DAMA-and is designed to carry out a model-independent test of DAMA's claim. Initial data based on the first 59.5 days indicate that there is no excess of events over the expected background, confirming that DAMA's annual modulation signal is in severe tension with results from other experiments under the assumption of dark matter having spin independent interactions and the Standard Halo Model. COSINE-100 is now taking data to study the presence of dark matter-induced annual modulation in the event rate of the sodium iodide detectors.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1906.01791,
title = {An experiment to search for dark matter interactions using sodium iodide detectors},
author = {Govinda Adhikari and Pushparaj Adhikari and Estella Barbosa de Souza and Nelson Carlin and Seonho Choi and Mitra Djamal and Anthony C. Ezeribe and Chang Hyon Ha and Insik Hahn and Antonia J. F. Hubbard and Eunju Jeon and Jay Hyun Jo and Hanwool Joo and Woon Gu Kang and Woosik Kang and Matthew Kauer and Bonghee Kim and Hyounggyu Kim and Hongjoo Kim and Kyungwon Kim and Nam Young Kim and Sun Kee Kim and Yeongduk Kim and Yong-Hamb Kim and Young Ju Ko and Vitaly A. Kudryavtsev and Hyun Su Lee and Jaison Lee and Jooyoung Lee and Moo Hyun Lee and Douglas S. Leonard and Warren A. Lynch and Reina H. Maruyama and Frederic Mouton and Stephen L. Olsen and Byungju Park and Hyang Kyu Park and Hyeonseo Park and Jungsic Park and Kangsoon Park and Walter C. Pettus and Hafizh Prihtiadi and Sejin Ra and Carsten Rott and Andrew Scarff and Keon Ah Shin and Neil J. C. Spooner and William G. Thompson and Liang Yang and Seok Hyun Yong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.01791},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
26 pages, 9 figures