Constraints on inelastic dark matter from XENON10

TL;DR

This paper analyzes XENON10 data to constrain inelastic dark matter models, finding that certain parameter spaces, especially for particle masses above 150 GeV, are excluded, challenging previous explanations of DAMA signals.

Contribution

It provides the first extended analysis of XENON10 data up to 75 keV to set new limits on inelastic dark matter models, excluding large parameter regions.

Findings

Excludes significant inelastic dark matter parameter space.

Disfavors dark matter particles with masses above 150 GeV.

Contrasts elastic and inelastic scattering spectra.

Abstract

It has been suggested that dark matter particles which scatter inelastically from detector target nuclei could explain the apparent incompatibility of the DAMA modulation signal (interpreted as evidence for particle dark matter) with the null results from CDMS-II and XENON10. Among the predictions of inelastically interacting dark matter are a suppression of low-energy events, and a population of nuclear recoil events at higher nuclear recoil equivalent energies. This is in stark contrast to the well-known expectation of a falling exponential spectrum for the case of elastic interactions. We present a new analysis of XENON10 dark matter search data extending to E$_{nr}=75$ keV nuclear recoil equivalent energy. Our results exclude a significant region of previously allowed parameter space in the model of inelastically interacting dark matter. In particular, it is found that dark matter particle masses $m_{\chi}\gtrsim150$ GeV are disfavored.