2021/11/30 by Gadi Afek, Daniel Carney, David C. Moore
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Light dark matter #Low Mass #Parameter space #Scalar field dark matter #Scattering #Sensitivity (control systems) #hep-ex #hep-ph #physics.ins-det #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.128.101301
5 pages, 3 figures
openalex created_date 2021/11/22 · arxiv created 2022/03/09 · openalex publication_date 2022/03/09 · arxiv updated 2022/03/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We propose a search for low mass dark matter particles through momentum recoils caused by their scattering from trapped, nm-scale objects. Our projections show that even with a modest array of fg-mass sensors, parameter-space beyond the reach of existing experiments can be explored. The case of smaller, ag-mass sensors is also analyzed - where dark matter can coherently scatter from the entire sensor - enabling a large enhancement in the scattering cross-section relative to interactions with single nuclei. Large arrays of such sensors have the potential to explore new parameter space down to dark matter masses as low as 10 keV. If recoils from dark matter are detected by such sensors, their inherent directional sensitivity would allow an unambiguous identification of a dark matter signal.