2015/09/30 by B. M. Roberts, V. V. Flambaum, G. F. Gribakin · 29 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adiabatic process #Atomic physics #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Coulomb #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Electron #Ion #Ionization #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Scalar field dark matter #Scattering #Semiclassical physics #Weakly interacting massive particles #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA #hep-ph #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.023201
published in Physical Review Letters 116(2), 023201 (American Physical Society) · 7 pages, 2 figures. Added Appendix
openalex publication_date 2016/01/12 · arxiv created 2016/01/13 · arxiv updated 2016/01/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Atoms and molecules can become ionized during the scattering of a slow, heavy particle off a bound electron. Such an interaction involving leptophilic weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is a promising possible explanation for the anomalous 9σ annual modulation in the DAMA dark matter direct detection experiment [R. Bernabei et al., Eur. Phys. J. C 73, 2648 (2013)]. We demonstrate the applicability of the Born approximation for such an interaction by showing its equivalence to the semiclassical adiabatic treatment of atomic ionization by slow-moving WIMPs. Conventional wisdom has it that the ionization probability for such a process should be exponentially small. We show, however, that due to nonanalytic, cusplike behavior of Coulomb functions close to the nucleus this suppression is removed, leading to an effective atomic structure enhancement. We also show that electron relativistic effects actually give the dominant contribution to such a process, enhancing the differential cross section by up to 1000 times.