Probing light WIMPs with directional detection experiments
Ben Morgan, Anne M. Green

TL;DR
This paper evaluates the potential of directional detection experiments to identify light WIMPs by observing anisotropic recoil signals, considering various models and experimental configurations.
Contribution
It provides a detailed analysis of the exposure needed for directional detectors to detect light WIMPs, highlighting the importance of energy thresholds and halo models.
Findings
Detection of anisotropic signals requires 7 to over 190 recoils depending on setup.
Exposures of around 10^3 kg day are needed for 10 GeV WIMPs at specified cross-section.
Lower WIMP masses demand higher exposures or lower energy thresholds.
Abstract
The CoGeNT and CRESST WIMP direct detection experiments have recently observed excesses of nuclear recoil events, while the DAMA/LIBRA experiment has a long standing annual modulation signal. It has been suggested that these excesses may be due to light mass, m_chi ~ 5-10 GeV, WIMPs. The Earth's motion with respect to the Galactic rest frame leads to a directional dependence in the WIMP scattering rate, providing a powerful signal of the Galactic origin of any recoil excess. We investigate whether direct detection experiments with directional sensitivity have the potential to observe this anisotropic scattering rate with the elastically scattering light WIMPs proposed to explain the observed excesses. We find that the number of recoils required to detect an anisotropic signal from light WIMPs at 5 sigma significance varies from 7 to more than 190 over the set of target nuclei and energy…
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