Dark antiatoms can explain DAMA

We show that the existence of a sub-dominant form of dark matter, made of dark antiatoms of mass and size of the order of 1 TeV and 30 fm respectively, can explain the results of direct detection experiments, with a positive signal in DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA and no signal in other experiments. The s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Wallemacq, Quentin, Jean-René Cudell
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 12.11.2014
Subjects
Atoms & subatomic particles
Charged particles
Dark matter
Elastic scattering
Experiments
Physics - High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Thallium
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Summary:We show that the existence of a sub-dominant form of dark matter, made of dark antiatoms of mass and size of the order of 1 TeV and 30 fm respectively, can explain the results of direct detection experiments, with a positive signal in DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA and no signal in other experiments. The signal comes from the binding of the dark antiatoms to thallium, a dopant in DAMA, and is not present for the constituent atoms of other experiments. The dark antiatoms are made of two particles oppositely charged under a dark U(1) symmetry and can bind to terrestrial atoms because of a kinetic mixing between the photon and the massless dark photon, such that the dark particles acquire an electric millicharge of the order of 0.0005e. This millicharge enables them to bind to high-Z atoms via radiative capture, after they thermalize in terrestrial matter through elastic collisions.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1411.3178