2015/07/28 by The XENON Collaboration, E. Aprile, F. Agostini +113 · 81 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Cosmology #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Dark matter halo #Electron #Galaxy #Halo #Hot dark matter #Light dark matter #Nuclear physics #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Recoil #Scalar field dark matter #Sigma #WIMP #Weakly interacting massive particles #astro-ph.CO #hep-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.aab2069
published in Science 349(6250), 851-854 (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · 4 pages, 4 figures, with supporting online material
arxiv created 2015/07/28 · openalex publication_date 2015/08/20 · arxiv updated 2015/08/24 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Laboratory experiments searching for galactic dark matter particles scattering off nuclei have so far not been able to establish a discovery. We use data from the XENON100 experiment to search for dark matter interacting with electrons. With no evidence for a signal above the low background of our experiment, we exclude a variety of representative dark matter models that would induce electronic recoils. For axial-vector couplings to electrons, we exclude cross sections above 6 × 10(-35) cm(2) for particle masses of m(χ) = 2 GeV/c(2). Independent of the dark matter halo, we exclude leptophilic models as an explanation for the long-standing DAMA/LIBRA signal, such as couplings to electrons through axial-vector interactions at a 4.4σ confidence level, mirror dark matter at 3.6σ, and luminous dark matter at 4.6σ.