The Search for Dark Matter (WIMPS) at Low Mass

TL;DR

This paper reviews experimental constraints and methods for detecting low mass WIMPs below 15 GeV, emphasizing the importance of detector response at low energies and highlighting liquid Xenon detectors as the most sensitive current approach.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of low mass WIMP detection techniques and introduces recent data fits to determine detector response at low energies.

Findings

Liquid Xenon 2-phase detectors are most sensitive for low mass WIMP searches.

Recent data fits help understand detector response at energies below 15 KeV.

Constraints on low mass WIMPs are improving with advanced detector methods.

Abstract

We briefly review the constraints on the search for low mass wimps (< 15 GeV) and the various experimental methods. These experiments depend on the response of detectors to low energy signals (less than 15 KeV equivalent energy). We then describe recent fits to the data and attempt to determine Leff, the energy response at low energy. We find that the use of a liquid Xenon 2-phase detector that employs the S_2 data near threshold is the most sensitive current study of the low mass region. We rely on some talks at Dark Matter 2010.