Detecting superlight dark matter with Fermi-degenerate materials
Abstract
We examine in greater detail the recent proposal of using superconductors for detecting dark matter as light as the warm dark matter limit of O(keV). Detection of suc light dark matter is possible if the entire kinetic energy of the dark matter is extracted in the scattering, and if the experiment is sensitive to O(meV) energy depositions. This is the case for Fermi-degenerate materials in which the Fermi velocity exceeds the dark matter velocity dispersion in the Milky Way of ∼ 10^(−3). We focus on a concrete experimental proposal using a superconducting target with a transition edge sensor in order to detect the small energy deposits from the dark matter scatterings. Considering a wide variety of constraints, from dark matter self-interactions to the cosmic microwave background, we show that models consistent with cosmological/astrophysical and terrestrial constraints are observable with such detectors. A wider range of viable models with dark matter mass below an MeV is available if dark matter or mediator properties (such as couplings or masses) differ at BBN epoch or in stellar interiors from those in superconductors. We also show that metal targets pay a strong in-medium suppression for kinetically mixed mediators; this suppression is alleviated with insulating targets.
Additional Information
© The Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Received: February 18, 2016. Revised: July 13, 2016. Accepted: July 20, 2016. Published: August 8, 2016. We thank Ehud Altman, Haipeng An, John Clarke, Snir Gazit, Roni Ilan, Eric Kuflik, Tongyan Lin, Dan McKinsey, Dave Moore, Joel Moore, Maxim Pospelov, Zohar Ringel and Kai Sun for very useful discussions. The work of YH is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1002399. YH is an Awardee of the Weizmann Institute of Science — National Postdoctoral Award Program for Advancing Women in Science. YH thanks the Aspen Center for Physics where part of this work was done, supported by NSF grant PHY-1066293. YZ is supported by DE-SC0007859. KZ is supported by the DoE under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231.Attached Files
Published - Hochberg2016_Article_DetectingSuperlightDarkMatterW.pdf
Accepted Version - 1512.04533.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 96421
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190613-164149690
- SCOAP3
- PHY-1002399
- NSF
- Weizmann Institute of Science
- PHY-1066293
- NSF
- DE-SC0007859
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
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2019-06-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field