Comparison between DAMA/LIBRA and COSINE-100 in the light of quenching factors

Author(s):Show less -

Ko, Y. J. ; Adhikari, G. ; Adhikari, P. ; de Souza, E. Barbosa ; Carlin, N. ; Choi, J. J. ; Choi, S. ; Djamal, M. ; Ezeribe, A. C. ; Ha, C. ; Hahn, I. S. ; Jeon, E. J. ; Jo, J. H. ; Kang, W. G. ; Kauer, M. ; Kim, G. S. ; Kim, H. ; Kim, H. J. ; Kim, K. W. ; Kim, N. Y. ; Kim, S. K. ; Kim, Y. D. ; Kim, Y. H. ; Lee, E. K. ; Lee, H. S. ; Lee, J. ; Lee, J. Y. ; Lee, M. H. ; Lee, S. H. ; Leonard, D. S. ; Lynch, W. A. ; Manzato, B. B. ; Maruyama, R. H. ; Neal, R. J. ; Olsen, S. L. ; Park, B. J. ; Park, H. K. ; Park, H. S. ; Park, K. S. ; Pitta, R. L. C. ; Prihtiadi, H. ; Ra, S. J. ; Rott, C. ; Shin, K. A. ; Scarff, A. ; Spooner, N. J. C. ; Thompson, W. G. ; Yango, L. ; Yui, G. H. ; COSINE-100 Collaboration

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics; v. N/A, n. 11, p. 15-pg., 2019-11-01.

Abstract

There is a long standing debate about whether or not the annual modulation signal reported by the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration is induced by Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) in the galaxy's dark matter halo scattering from nuclides in their NaI(Tl) crystal target/detector. This is because regions of WIMP-mass vs. WIMP-nucleon cross-section parameter space that can accommodate the DAMA/LIBRA-phase1 modulation signal in the context of the standard WIMP dark matter galactic halo and isospin-conserving (canonical), spin-independent (SI) WIMP-nucleon interactions have been excluded by many of other dark matter search experiments including COSINE-100, which uses the same NaI(Tl) target/detector material. Moreover, the recently released DAMA/LIBRA-phase2 results are inconsistent with an interpretation as WIMP-nuclide scattering via the canonical SI interaction and prefer, instead, isospin-violating or spin-dependent interactions. Dark matter interpretations of the DAMA/LIBRA signal are sensitive to the NaI(Tl) scintillation efficiency for nuclear recoils, which is characterized by so-called quenching factors (QF), and the QF values used in previous studies differ significantly from recently reported measurements, which may have led to incorrect interpretations of the DAMA/LIBRA signal. In this article, the compatibility of the DAMA/LIBRA and COSINE-100 results, in light of the new QF measurements is examined for different possible types of WIMP-nucleon interactions. The resulting allowed parameter space regions associated with the DAMA/LIBRA signal are explicitly compared with 90% confidence level upper limits from the initial 59.5 day COSINE-100 exposure. With the newly measured QF values, the allowed 3 sigma regions from the DAMA/LIBRA data are still generally excluded by the COSINE-100 data. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/02952-0 - Search for dark matter: WIMPs and dark photons
• Grantee: Nelson Carlin Filho
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants