Pith. sign in

Can dark matter - electron scattering explain the DAMA annual modulation signal?

1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

1 Pith paper citing it
abstract

The annually modulating $\sim$ keV scintillations observed in the DAMA/NaI and DAMA/Libra experiments might be due to dark matter - electron scattering. Such an explanation is now favoured given the stringent constraints on nuclear recoil rates obtained by LUX, SuperCDMS and other experiments. We suggest that multi-component dark matter models featuring light dark matter particles of mass $\sim$ MeV can potentially explain the data. A specific example, kinetically mixed mirror dark matter, is shown to have the right broad properties to consistently explain the experiments via dark matter - electron scattering. If this is the explanation of the annual modulation signal found in the DAMA experiments then a sidereal diurnal modulation signal is also anticipated. We point out that the data from the DAMA experiments show a diurnal variation at around 2.3$\sigma$ C.L. with phase consistent with that expected. This electron scattering interpretation of the DAMA experiments can potentially be probed in large xenon experiments (LUX, XENON1T,...), as well as in low threshold experiments (CoGeNT, CDEX, C4, ...) by searching for annually and diurnally modulated electron recoils.

fields

hep-ph 1

years

2025 1

verdicts

CONDITIONAL 1

representative citing papers

Asteroseismological constraints on--and hints of--dark matter interactions

hep-ph · 2025-05-12 · conditional · novelty 6.0

Dark matter heat transport can erase convective cores in solar-mass stars, yielding asteroseismic constraints on dark matter-nucleon scattering and a 4 sigma hint of dark matter-electron scattering in KIC 8228742 that conflicts with direct detection limits.

citing papers explorer

Showing 1 of 1 citing paper.

  • Asteroseismological constraints on--and hints of--dark matter interactions hep-ph · 2025-05-12 · conditional · none · ref 85 · internal anchor

    Dark matter heat transport can erase convective cores in solar-mass stars, yielding asteroseismic constraints on dark matter-nucleon scattering and a 4 sigma hint of dark matter-electron scattering in KIC 8228742 that conflicts with direct detection limits.