Readout strategies for directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino background

Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali; O'Hare, Ciaran A.J.; Green, Anne M.; Billard, Julien; Strigari, Louis E.

Abstract

© 2015 American Physical Society. The search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by direct detection faces an encroaching background due to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. As the sensitivity of these experiments improves, the question of how to best distinguish a dark matter signal from neutrinos will become increasingly important. A proposed method of overcoming this so-called "neutrino floor" is to utilize the directional signature that both neutrino- and dark-matter-induced recoils possess. We show that directional experiments can indeed probe WIMP-nucleon cross sections below the neutrino floor with little loss in sensitivity due to the neutrino background. In particular we find at low WIMP masses (around 6 GeV) the discovery limits for directional detectors penetrate below the nondirectional limit by several orders of magnitude. For high WIMP masses (around 100 GeV), the nondirectional limit is overcome by a factor of a few. Furthermore we show that even for directional detectors which can only measure one- or two-dimensional projections of the three-dimensional recoil track, the discovery potential is only reduced by a factor of 3 at most. We also demonstrate that while the experimental limitations of directional detectors, such as sense recognition and finite angular resolution, have a detrimental effect on the discovery limits, it is still possible to overcome the ultimate neutrino background faced by nondirectional detectors.

Citation

Figueroa-Feliciano, E., O'Hare, C. A., Green, A. M., Billard, J., & Strigari, L. E. (2015). Readout strategies for directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino background. Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology, 92(6), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.063518

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Sep 17, 2015
• Publication Date: Sep 17, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jun 30, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 30, 2016
• Journal: Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
• Print ISSN: 1550-7998
• Electronic ISSN: 1550-2368
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 92
• Issue: 6
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.063518
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/761004
• Publisher URL: http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.063518
• Related Public URLs: http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.063518
• Contract Date: Jun 30, 2016