Can dark matter - electron scattering explain the DAMA annual modulation consistent with XENON100 constraints?

preprint2016arXivOpen access

Abstract

For many years annually modulating ∼\sim keV scintillations have been observed in the DAMA/NaI and DAMA/Libra experiments. A dark matter - electron scattering interpretation is now favoured given the stringent constraints on nuclear recoil rates obtained by LUX, SuperCDMS and other experiments. Very recently, the XENON100 experiment has observed a modest annual modulation in their electron recoil events (2.8 σσ C.L.) with phase consistent with that of the DAMA experiments. However, they also found a stringent upper limit on the unmodulated rate, which suggests that any dark matter - electron scattering interpretation of these annual modulations must involve a large modulation fraction ∼>50%\stackrel{>}{\sim} 50\%. Here we discuss the extent to which these results might be able to be accommodated within multi-component dark matter models featuring light dark matter particles of mass ∼\sim MeV, focusing on the mirror dark matter case for definiteness. The importance of diurnal variation as a means of testing these kinds of models is also discussed.

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