Evidence for mirror dark matter from the CDMS low energy electron recoil spectrum

TL;DR

This paper suggests that mirror dark matter could explain low energy electron recoil signals observed in CDMS data, providing tentative evidence that supports mirror dark matter as an explanation for DAMA's annual modulation signal.

Contribution

It proposes that mirror electron scattering accounts for low energy electron recoils in CDMS data, linking it to mirror dark matter and the DAMA signals.

Findings

CDMS low energy electron recoil data shows a sharp rise below 2 keV.

The parameters from CDMS data are consistent with mirror dark matter explanations.

Supports the hypothesis that mirror dark matter explains DAMA's annual modulation.

Abstract

We point out that mirror dark matter predicts low energy ($E_R \stackrel{<}{\sim} 2$ keV) electron recoils from mirror electron scattering as well as nuclear recoils from mirror ion scattering. The former effect is examined and applied to the recently released low energy electron recoil data from the CDMS collaboration. We speculate that the sharp rise in electron recoils seen in CDMS below 2 keV might be due to mirror electron scattering and show that the parameters suggested by the data are roughly consistent with the mirror dark matter explanation of the annual modulation signal observed in the DAMA/Libra and DAMA/NaI experiments. Thus, the CDMS data offer tentative evidence supporting the mirror dark matter explanation of the DAMA experiments, which can be more rigorously checked by future low energy electron recoil measurements.