SENSEI: A Search for Diurnal Modulation in Sub-GeV Dark Matter Scattering
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Dark matter particles with sufficiently large interactions with ordinary matter can scatter in the Earth's atmosphere and crust before reaching an underground detector. This Earth-shielding effect can induce a directional dependence in the dark matter flux, leading to a sidereal daily modulation in the signal rate. We perform a search for such a modulation using data from the SENSEI experiment, targeting MeV-scale dark matter. We achieve nearly an order-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity over previous direct-detection bounds for dark-matter masses below ∼1 MeV, assuming the standard halo model with a Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution, and restrict the amplitude of a general daily modulation signal to be below 6.8 e/g/d.
Source: Physical Review Letters
DOI: 10.1103/1gpp-3tqd
Authors: Itay M. Bloch, Ana M. Botti, Mariano Cababie, Gustavo Cancelo, Brenda A. Cervantes-Vergara, Miguel Daal, Ansh Desai, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Rouven Essig, Juan Estrada, Erez Etzion, Guillermo Fernandez Moroni, Stephen E. Holland, Jonathan Kehat, Ian Lawson, Steffon Luoma, Aviv Orly, Santiago E. Perez, Dario Rodrigues, Nathan A. Saffold, Silvia Scorza, Miguel Sofo-Haro, Kelly Stifter, Javier Tiffenberg, Sho Uemura, Edgar Marrufo Villalpando, Tomer Volansky, Federico Winkel, Yikai Wu, Tien-Tien Yu, Xavier Bertou
Institutions: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California System, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, University of Chicago, TU Wien, MBI - Marietta-Blau-Institut für Teilchenphysik, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Tel Aviv University, University of Oregon, Stony Brook University, Snolab, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Institut polytechnique de Grenoble, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, Université Grenoble Alpes, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Université Paris-Saclay, Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules, Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,750
OpenAlex ID: W4415947765