Is DAMAs modulation amplitude changing with time?
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
6-21-2016
Abstract
If dark matter is composed of weakly interacting particles, Earth's orbital motion induces a small annual variation in the rate at which these particles interact in a terrestrial detector. The DAMA collaboration has identified at a 9.3σ confidence level (CL) such an annual modulation in their event rate over two detector iterations, DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA, each with about 7 years of observations. We examine the nature of this modulation signal and find the modulation amplitude for the two detectors is inconsistent at the 3σ CL over 2-6 keVee. Such a time-dependence in the modulation amplitude is unexpected behavior for a dark matter signal, at least for dark matter halo morphologies consistent with the DAMA signal. We also find unusual behavior over the 5-6 keVee energy range that might indicate problems with the data.
Publication Title
AIP Conference Proceedings
Volume
1743
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1063/1.4953308
ISSN
0094243X
E-ISSN
15517616
ISBN
9780735414006
Citation Information
Kelso, C. (2016) "Is DAMAs modulation amplitude changing with time?" AIP Conference Proceedings 1743, 050007. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4953308