Ingrid Fadelli is a writer for Phys.org.
Physicists worldwide are continuing their search for dark matter, an elusive type of matter that does not absorb, reflect or emit light and is believed to make up most of the matter in the universe. A type of dark matter that many teams are looking for is sub-GeV dark matter.
The PandaX-II collaboration, a large team of researchers working at different institutes and universities in China, has recently carried out a search for Cosmic-ray boosted dark matter using data collected by the PandaX-II detector. Their results were published in the Physical Review Letters.
Light dark matter, with mass smaller than the proton mass, was usually not probed in direct detection since it cannot produce large enough nuclear recoil to exceed detector's threshold. This allows them to overcome the threshold that was first pointed out by researchers Torsten Bringmann and Maxim Pospelov.
In their recent study, the PandaX-II collaboration looked at the signal of the dark matter that is boosted by the rays of the sun. The data collected by the PandaX-II detector was analyzed.
Their analyses were based on one of their previous phenomenological papers. The team had noticed for the first time that the dark matter coming from the core of our galaxy had a unique signature.
The researchers said that dark matter travels a certain distance inside Earth before reaching the detector, which varies from 2 km to 13000 km.
The PandaX-II collaboration realized that a combination of the distance that dark matter traveled inside Earth and its attenuation effects led to a unique diurnal modulation. In their new study, they set out to find this diurnal modulation by analyzing real data from the PandaX-II experiment.
The researchers explained that they used the full data for a total of 100 ton day. These two features are used to improve signal sensitivity and suppress background.
The team made a number of theoretical considerations. They used a series of theoretical models to consider the distributions of dark matter and cosmic rays.
The PandaX-II collaboration said that they modeled the propagation of dark matter in the Earth using a full Monte Carlo simulation method.
The recent analyses conducted by this team of researchers could help find sub-GeV dark matter. The probed space for dark matter was extended from 0.1 MeV to GeV, covering a crucial type of dark matter-nucleon interactions that were previously unavailable to astrophysical and cosmological probes.
The team used the same experimental setup and datasets used in their previous analyses to gather additional insight. The new experiment is called the PandaX-4T experiment. The team is going to carry out further analyses.
The new experiment is expected to improve the exposure by more than an order of magnitude. We want to use our data to find new physics phenomena.
More information: Xiangyi Cui et al, Search for Cosmic-Ray Boosted Sub-GeV Dark Matter at the PandaX-II Experiment, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.171801The Diurnal Effect of Sub-GeV Dark Matter was reported in the Physical Review Letters. There is a book titled "PhysRevLett.126.091804."
Torsten Bringmann and his colleagues wrote about novel direct detection constraints on light dark matter. There is a book titled "PhysRevLett.122.171801."
Journal information: Physical Review LettersThe Science X Network will be launched in 2022.
Citation: Searching for cosmic-ray boosted sub-GeV dark matter using data from the PandaX-II experiment (2022, May 16) retrieved 16 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-cosmic-ray-boosted-sub-gev-dark-pandax-ii.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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