First Nuclear Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter Search in Argon Time Projection Chambers with the DarkSide-50 Experiment

TL;DR

This paper presents the first search for ultra-heavy nuclear dark matter using a liquid argon time projection chamber, setting new limits on interaction cross sections for masses up to 500 GeV/c^2.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search method for ultra-heavy dark matter in argon TPCs, focusing on multi-scatter event topologies and providing new exclusion limits.

Findings

Excluded limits on UHDM-nucleon cross section for masses 10-500 GeV/c^2

First application of argon TPCs for ultra-heavy dark matter detection

Optimized selection criteria for multi-scatter events

Abstract

We report the first search for nuclear ultra-heavy dark matter (UHDM) in a dual-phase liquid argon time projection chamber using the DarkSide-50 experiment. Unlike conventional weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), nuclear UHDM candidates may be composed of many dark nucleons and scatter numerous times while passing through the detector. Accounting for energy loss through the Earth's overburden, we apply selection criteria optimized for multi-scatter event topologies using the 532-day low-radiation campaign of the DarkSide-50 detector. Excluded limits on the UHDM-nucleon scattering cross section for dark nucleon masses of $m_\chi = 10, 50, 100, 500 \, \mathrm{GeV/c^2}$ are presented.