# DAMA annual modulation and mirror Dark Matter

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the DAMA annual modulation signal as evidence for mirror Dark Matter, a hidden sector duplicate of ordinary matter, analyzing different compositions and interaction scenarios to constrain the kinetic mixing parameter.

## Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of DAMA's modulation in terms of mirror Dark Matter, exploring various compositions and interaction models to derive constraints on kinetic mixing.

## Key findings

- Mirror Dark Matter can explain DAMA's modulation signal.
- Constraints on kinetic mixing parameter are derived for different mirror matter compositions.
- Various nuclear and particle physics uncertainties are considered in the analysis.

## Abstract

The DAMA experiment using ultra low background NaI(Tl) crystal scintillators has measured an annual modulation effect in the keV region which satisfies all the peculiarities of an effect induced by Dark Matter particles. In this paper we analyze this annual modulation effect in terms of mirror Dark Matter, an exact duplicate of ordinary matter from parallel hidden sector, which chemical composition is dominated by mirror helium while it can also contain significant fractions of heavier elements as Carbon and Oxygen. Dark mirror atoms are considered to interact with the target nuclei in the detector via Rutherford-like scattering induced by kinetic mixing between mirror and ordinary photons, both being massless. In the present analysis we consider various possible scenarios for the mirror matter chemical composition. For all the scenarios, the relevant ranges for the kinetic mixing parameter have been obtained taking also into account various existing uncertainties in nuclear and particle physics quantities.