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Opening the energy window on direct dark matter detection

Bozorgnia, Nassim; Cerdeño, David G.; Cheek, Andrew; Penning, Bjoern

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Authors

Nassim Bozorgnia

David G. Cerdeño

Andrew Cheek

Bjoern Penning



Abstract

In this article we investigate the benefits of increasing the maximum nuclear recoil energy analysed in dark matter (DM) direct detection experiments. We focus on elastic DM-nucleus interactions, and work within the framework of effective field theory (EFT) to describe the scattering cross section. In agreement with previous literature, we show that an increased maximum energy leads to more stringent upper bounds on the DM-nucleus cross section for the EFT operators, especially those with an explicit momentum dependence. In this article we extend the energy region of interest (ROI) to show that the optimal values of the maximum energy for xenon and argon are of the order of 500 keV and 300 keV, respectively. We then show how, if a signal compatible with DM is observed, an enlarged energy ROI leads to a better measurement of the DM mass and couplings. In particular, for a xenon detector, DM masses of the order of 200 GeV (2 TeV) or lower can be reconstructed for momentum-independent (-dependent) operators. We also investigate three-dimensional parameter reconstruction and apply it to the specific case of scalar DM and anapole DM. We find that opening the energy ROI is an excellent way to identify the linear combination of momentum-dependent and momentum-independent operators, and it is crucial to correctly distinguish these models. Finally, we show how an enlarged energy ROI also allows us to test astrophysical parameters of the DM halo, such as the DM escape speed.

Citation

Bozorgnia, N., Cerdeño, D. G., Cheek, A., & Penning, B. (2018). Opening the energy window on direct dark matter detection. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2018(12), Article 013. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2018/12/013

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 22, 2018
Online Publication Date Dec 10, 2018
Publication Date Dec 10, 2018
Deposit Date Jan 10, 2019
Publicly Available Date Dec 10, 2019
Journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Electronic ISSN 1475-7516
Publisher IOP Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2018
Issue 12
Article Number 013
DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2018/12/013
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1310179

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