12.07.2015 Views

Mohamad-Ziad Charif - Antares

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2.3 Methods of detection2.3.1 Direct detectionDirect detection of dark matter refers to the detection of dark matter via its scatteringoff nucleus in a detector, causing transfer of momentum to the target nucleusand forcing it to recoil. Direct detection experiments use different techniquesfor detection (scintillation, phonon, and ionization) depending on the material ofthe detector (Ge, Si, NaI, and Xenon). The physics in dark matter nucleus interactioninvolves elastic scattering on nucleus, this scattering can be axial-vectorgiving rise to spin-dependent scattering or scalar giving rise to spin-independentscattering. Experiments using heavy nuclei such as the Iodine, Germanium orXenon like DAMA[32], Edelweiss[33], SuperCDMS[34], XENON[35], and othersare more sensitive to scalar interactions and their limits are mainly constrainingthe spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross-section. On the other hands experimentsusing light nuclei are more sensitive to spin-dependent such as COUPP[36],SIMPLE[37] and NAIAD[38].The spin-independent scattering amplitude can be written as follows[39] in equation2.14 and the cross-section in equation 2.15, where N denotes the nucleontype, λ N is WIMP nuclei coupling, m χ and M N are the WIMP and nucleon massrespectively, A is the atomic mass and Z the atomic number.|A SI | 2 = 64(m χ M N ) 2 (λ p Z + λ n (A − Z)) 2 (2.14)σ SI =4m 2 χM 2 Nπ(m χ + M N ) 2 .(λ pZ + λ n (A − Z)) 2 (2.15)The spin-dependent scattering amplitude and cross section can be written as follows[39]in equations 2.16 & 2.17, where J is the angular momentum of the nuclei, and Sis the spin of the nuclei where it takes the value of 0 for nuclei that have an evennumber of protons and neutrons and 0.5 for all other.|A SD | 2 = 192(m χ M N ) 2 (2.16)σ SD =16m 2 χMN2π(m χ + M N ) 2 .J A + 1(J A∑ ε i Si A ) 2 (2.17)i=p,nFindings in direct detection has yielded some results that might indicate thepresence of a light dark matter particle. DAMA experiment claims the observationof a dark matter signal[40]. This signal corresponds to annual modulation in theirdata that is related to Earth’s rotation around the Sun. However, while these resultsare with an extremely high statistical significance (above 6σ), these results are in19

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