Observations of annual modulation in direct detection of relic particles and light neutralinos

TL;DR

This paper compares annual modulation signals from DAMA and CoGeNT experiments, showing they are consistent and can be explained by light neutralinos in a supersymmetric model fitting multiple experimental constraints.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of DAMA and CoGeNT signals under dark matter hypotheses and demonstrates their compatibility with a supersymmetric neutralino model.

Findings

DAMA and CoGeNT signals are compatible and consistent.

A supersymmetric light neutralino model fits the data and experimental constraints.

The analysis accounts for various galactic halo models and uncertainties.

Abstract

The long-standing model-independent annual modulation effect measured by the DAMA Collaboration, which fulfills all the requirements of a dark matter annual modulation signature, and the new result by the CoGeNT experiment that shows a similar behavior are comparatively examined under the hypothesis of a dark matter candidate particle interacting with the detectors' nuclei by a coherent elastic process. The ensuing physical regions in the plane of the dark matter-particle mass versus the dark matter-particle nucleon cross-section are derived for various galactic halo models and by taking into account the impact of various experimental uncertainties. It is shown that the DAMA and the CoGeNT regions agree well between each other and are well fitted by a supersymmetric model with light neutralinos which satisfies all available experimental constraints, including the most recent results from CMS and ATLAS at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.