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Published March 15, 2000 | public
Journal Article Open

Neutralino inelastic scattering with subsequent detection of nuclear γ rays

Abstract

We consider the potential benefits of searching for supersymmetric dark matter through its inelastic excitation, via the "scalar current," of low-lying collective nuclear states in a detector. If such states live long enough so that the γ radiation from their decay can be separated from the signal due to nuclear recoil, then background can be dramatically reduced. We show how the kinematics of neutralino-nucleus scattering is modified when the nucleus is excited and derive expressions for the form factors associated with exciting collective states. We apply these results to two specific cases: (1) the Iπ=5/2+ state at 13 keV in 73Ge, and (2) the rotational and hence very collective state Iπ=3/2+ at 8 keV in 169Tm (even though observing the transition down from that state will be difficult). In both cases we compare the form factors for inelastic scattering with those for elastic scattering. The inelastic cross section is considerably smaller than its elastic counterpart, though perhaps not always prohibitively so.

Additional Information

©2000 The American Physical Society Received 20 October 1999; published 17 February 2000 We thank F. Avignone and R. Gaitskell for useful discussions, and the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington for its hospitality while some of this work was carried out. We were supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under grants DE-FG02-97ER41019 and DE-FG03-88ER40397.

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