Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, we study the recent excess of low-energy events observed by the CoGeNT Collaboration and the annual modulation reported by the DAMA/LIBRA Collaboration, and discuss whether these signals could both be the result of the same elastically scattering dark matter particle. We find that, without channeling but when taking into account uncertainties in the relevant quenching factors, a dark matter candidate with a mass of approximately $7\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$ and a cross section with nucleons of ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{DM}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{N}}\ensuremath{\sim}2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{pb}$ ($2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}40}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$) could account for both of these observations. We also comment on the events recently observed in the oxygen band of the CRESST experiment and point out that these could potentially be explained by such a particle. Lastly, we compare the region of parameter space favored by DAMA/LIBRA and CoGeNT to the constraints from XENON10, XENON100, and CDMS (Si) and find that these experiments cannot at this time rule out a dark matter interpretation of these signals.
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2057517044