Directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino bound

Philipp Grothaus*, Malcolm Fairbairn, Jocelyn Monroe

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Coherent scattering of solar, atmospheric, and diffuse supernovae neutrinos creates an irreducible background for direct dark matter experiments with sensitivities to WIMP-nucleon spin-independent scattering cross sections of 10-46-10-48cm2, depending on the WIMP mass. Even if one could eliminate all other backgrounds, this "neutrino floor" will limit future experiments with projected sensitivities to cross sections as small as 10-48cm2. Direction-sensitive detectors have the potential to study dark matter beyond the neutrino bound by fitting event distributions in multiple dimensions: recoil kinetic energy, recoil track angle with respect to the sun, and event time. This work quantitatively explores the impact of direction sensitivity on the neutrino bound in dark matter direct detection.

Original languageEnglish
Article number055018
Number of pages15
JournalPhysical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology)
Volume90
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Sept 2014

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