2003/01/31 by I. F. M. Albuquerque, Ivone F. M. Albuquerque, L. Baudis +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #hep-ex #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.90.221301
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 90 (2003) 221301; Erratum-ibid. 91 (2003) 229903 · 10 pages, 2 figures, Figure 2 replaced
openalex publication_date 2003/06/05 · arxiv created 2004/01/26 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The dark matter in the Universe might be composed of superheavy particles (mass greater, similar 10(10) GeV). These particles can be detected via nuclear recoils produced in elastic scatterings from nuclei. We estimate the observable rate of strongly interacting supermassive particles (simpzillas) in direct dark matter search experiments. The simpzilla energy loss in Earth and in the experimental shields is taken into account. The most natural scenarios for simpzillas are ruled out based on recent EDELWEISS and CDMS results. The dark matter can be composed of superheavy particles only if these interact weakly with normal matter or if their mass is above 10(15) GeV.