Published September 16, 2016
| Published + Submitted
Journal Article
Open
Detectability of Light Dark Matter with Superfluid Helium
- Creators
- Schutz, Katelin
-
Zurek, Kathryn M.
Abstract
We show that a two-excitation process in superfluid helium, combined with sensitivity to meV energy depositions, can probe dark matter down to the ∼ keV warm dark matter mass limit. This mass reach is 3 orders of magnitude below what can be probed with ordinary nuclear recoils in helium at the same energy resolution. For dark matter lighter than ∼100 keV, the kinematics of the process requires the two athermal excitations to have nearly equal and opposite momentum, potentially providing a built-in coincidence mechanism for controlling backgrounds.
Additional Information
© 2016 American Physical Society. (Received 9 May 2016; revised manuscript received 4 August 2016; published 14 September 2016) We thank Eckhard Krotschek for providing the data of Ref. [40] utilized in our numeric estimates, Bob Golub for giving us access to the internal notes to accompany his published paper and for discussions explaining his results, Dan McKinsey for pointing out that the response of liquid helium to multiphonons or rotons is important, Henry Glyde for a discussion about ultracold neutrons in superfluid helium, and Matt Pyle for many conversations about detecting small energy deposits in superconductors and superfluids. We also thank Yonit Hochberg, Michele Papucci, Peter Scherpelz, and Yue Zhao for comments on the manuscript, and Tongyan Lin for collaboration in work to appear [31]. K. S. is supported by a Hertz Foundation Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. K. S. and K. Z. are supported by the DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.Attached Files
Published - PhysRevLett.117.121302.pdf
Submitted - 1604.08206.pdf
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1604.08206.pdf
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Additional details
- Alternative title
- On the Detectability of Light Dark Matter with Superfluid Helium
- Eprint ID
- 96426
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190613-164150666
- Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
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2019-06-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field