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Superconducting Detectors for Superlight Dark Matter

Yonit Hochberg, Yue Zhao, and Kathryn M. Zurek
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 011301 – Published 7 January 2016
Physics logo See Synopsis: Spotting Dark Matter with Supermaterials

Abstract

We propose and study a new class of superconducting detectors that are sensitive to O(meV) electron recoils from dark matter–electron scattering. Such devices could detect dark matter as light as the warm dark-matter limit, mX1keV. We compute the rate of dark-matter scattering off of free electrons in a (superconducting) metal, including the relevant Pauli blocking factors. We demonstrate that classes of dark matter consistent with terrestrial and cosmological or astrophysical constraints could be detected by such detectors with a moderate size exposure.

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  • Received 8 June 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.011301

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Synopsis

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Spotting Dark Matter with Supermaterials

Published 14 September 2016

Superconducting aluminum or superfluid helium could be used to detect superlight dark matter particles.

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Authors & Affiliations

Yonit Hochberg1, Yue Zhao2, and Kathryn M. Zurek1

  • 1Theoretical Physics Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

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Issue

Vol. 116, Iss. 1 — 8 January 2016

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